Abstract
One of the challenges confronting website designers is to provide effective navigational support. Supplemental navigation tools such as search, indexes and sitemaps are frequently included on websites. However, due to a lack of guidance for designers a proliferation of designs has evolved leaving users confused about the role and value of each particular tool. This paper reports an empirical investigation into the expectations of users regarding the purpose and design of supplemental navigation tools. Expectations are then compared with a survey of the current utilization of these tools in major commercial websites. The study establishes a relationship between certain types of information goals and the selection of search and sitemap tools.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
References
Bieber, M., Vitali, R, Ashman, H., Balasubramanian, V. & Oinas-Kukkonen, H. [1997], Fourth Generation Hypermedia: Some Missing Links for the World Wide Web, International Journal of Human-Computer Studies 47(1), 31–66. Special Issue on “Web Usability” edited by S. Buckingham Shum & C. McKnight.
Danielson, D. R. [2002], Web Navigation and the Behavioral Effects of Constantly Visible Site Maps, Interacting with Computers 14(5), 601–18.
Duncan, E. B. & McAleese, R. [1987], Intelligent Access to Databases Using a Thesaurus in Graphical Form, in Proceedings of the 11th International Online Information Meeting (Online Information’ 87), Learned Information, pp. 377–87.
Gershon, N. D., Ferren, B., Foley, J., Hardin, J., Kappe, F. & R., W. A. [1995], Visualizing the Internet: Putting the User in the Driver’s Seat, in R. Cook (ed.), Proceedings of SIGGRAPH’95 22nd Annual Conference on Computer Graphics and Interactive Techniques, Computer Graphics (Annual Conference Series) 29, ACM Press, pp. 492–4. Panel session.
Lucarella, D. & Zanzi, A. [1993], Information Retrieval from Hypertext: An Approach Using Plausible Inference, Information Processing and Management 29(3), 299–312.
Mukherjea, S. & Foley, J. D. [1995], Visualising the World Wide Web with the Navigational View Builder, in D. Kroemker (ed.), Proceedings of the Third International World-Wide Web Conference (WWW3), Vol. 27(6) of Computer Networks and ISDN Systems, Elsevier Science, pp. 1075–87.
Nielsen, J. [1990], The Art of Navigating Through Hypertext, Communications of the ACM 33(3), 296–310.
Nielsen, J. [2000], Designing Web Usability, New Riders Publishing.
Pilgrim, C. J., Leung, Y. K. & Lindgaard, G. [2002], An Exploratory Study of WWW Browsing Strategies, in G. Dai (ed.), Proceedings of the 5th Asia-Pacific Conference on Computer-Human Interaction (APCHI 2002), Science Press, pp.283–92.
Rosenfeld, L. & Morville, P. [1998], Information Architecture for the World Wide Web, O’Reilly and Associates.
Shneiderman, B. [1997], Designing Information-Abundant Websites: Issues and Recommendations, International Journal of Human-Computer Studies 47(1), 5–30.
Tauscher, L. & Greenberg, S. [1996], Design Guidelines for Effective WWW History Mechanisms, in Proceedings of the Second Conference on Human Factors and the Web: Designing for the Web — Empirical Studies, Microsoft Corporation. Available at http://www.microsoft.com/usability/webconf.htm.
W3C [2004], Semantic Web, http://www.w3.org/2001/sw/. Worldwide Web Consortium.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2005 Springer-Verlag London Limited
About this paper
Cite this paper
Pilgrim, C.J., Leung, Y.K., Lindgaard, G. (2005). Supplemental Navigation Tools for Website Navigation — A Comparison of User Expectations and Current Practice. In: Fincher, S., Markopoulos, P., Moore, D., Ruddle, R. (eds) People and Computers XVIII — Design for Life. Springer, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/1-84628-062-1_17
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/1-84628-062-1_17
Publisher Name: Springer, London
Print ISBN: 978-1-85233-900-5
Online ISBN: 978-1-84628-062-7
eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)