Chapter 7. NAVIGATING THE WEB
"It's impossible to move, to live, to operate at any level without leaving traces, bits, seemingly meaningless fragments of personal information."
NAVIGATION TOOLS assist users in their surfing tasks. Some are built-in to the browser or provided though plugins, and others are delivered through web sites in order to help users locate information local to the sites. Various techniques have been developed to analyze the navigability and usability of web sites, including web data mining methods, which are concerned with the content, structure, and usage of web sites. Visualization is also important as a means of improving usability by aiding web analytics, and in providing visual user interfaces that can help users surf the Web.
CHAPTER OBJECTIVES
Describe the frustration that users experience when surfing the Web.
Describe some issues related to web site usability that, if addressed, could reduce user frustration when surfing.
Discuss the basic browser navigation tools, including the link marker and tabbed browsing.
Explain how the back and forward buttons work.
Present results from studies on how surfers use the available browser navigation tools.
Point out the use of search engine toolbars as a way to search the Web directly from the browser taskbar.
Discuss the utility of the bookmarks tool, how clustering and categorization technologies can be used to organize bookmarks into folders, and point out ways in which bookmarks may be managed. ...
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