An Analysis of User Behavior on the Web - Understanding the Web and Its Users

At first sight, browsing the World Wide Web is a fairly intuitive and simple activity,but it turns out that users often experience difficulties in finding the informationand services that they are looking for - or in returning to items thatthey have visited before. In order to improve the current design of Web sitesand Web browsers, or to provide users with personalized interfaces, oneneeds to know how users interact with the Web. Although theoretical modelsand empirical data exist, the knowledge that they provide is limited and scattered.In this book, we integrate current insights and extend this body ofknowledge with a number of user studies. Several methods are presented forobtaining, clearing, analyzing and visualizing Web usage data. Various aspectsof user navigation styles are discussed. Particular attention is given tothe issue why, when and how often users return to Web pages, and howbrowsers can support this more effectively. An important observation is thatthe Web has evolved from a hypermedia system to a hybrid between hypermediaand interactive applications. This book targets researchers and professionalswho want to better understand and support the users that visit theirWeb sites or that make use of their applications and tools.