Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

SNIF-ACT: A Model of Information Foraging on the World Wide Web

  • Conference paper
  • First Online:
User Modeling 2003 (UM 2003)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNAI,volume 2702))

Included in the following conference series:

Abstract

SNIF-ACT (Scent-based Navigation and Information Foraging in the ACT architecture) has been developed to simulate users as they perform unfamiliar information-seeking tasks on the World Wide Web (WWW). SNIF-ACT selects actions based on the measure of information scent, which is calculated by a spreading activation mechanism that captures the mutual relevance of the contents of a WWW page to the goal of the user. There are two main predictions of SNIF-ACT: (1) users working on unfamiliar tasks are expected to choose links that have high information scent, (2) users will leave a site when the information scent of the site diminishes below a certain threshold. SNIF-ACT produced good fits to data collected from four users working on two tasks each. The results suggest that the current content-based spreading activation SNIF-ACT model is able to generate useful predictions about complex user-WWW interactions.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Log in via an institution
Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD 39.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD 54.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

Preview

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

References

  1. Pirolli, P. and S.K. Card, Information foraging. Psychological Review, 1999. 106: p. 643–675.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  2. Anderson, J.R. and C. Lebiere, The atomic components of thought. 2000, Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

    Google Scholar 

  3. Pirolli, P., et al. A user-tracing architecture for modeling interaction with the World Wide Web. in Advanced Visual Interfaces, AVI 2002. 2002. Trento, Italy: ACM Press.

    Google Scholar 

  4. Pirolli, P., Cognitive engineering models and cognitive architectures in human-computer interaction, in Handbook of applied cognition, F.T. Durso, et al., Editors. 1999, John Wiley & Sons: West Sussex, England. p. 441–477.

    Google Scholar 

  5. Lynch, G., S. Palmiter, and C. Tilt. The Max model: A standard web site user model. in Human Factors and the Web. 1999.

    Google Scholar 

  6. Card, S.K., T.P. Moran, and A. Newell, The psychology of human-computer interaction. 1983, Hillsdale, New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

    Google Scholar 

  7. Pirolli, P., A web site user model should at least predict something about users. internetworking, 2000. 3.

    Google Scholar 

  8. Byrne, M.D., et al. The tangled web we wove: A taxonomy of WWW use. in Human Factors in Computing Systems, CHI’ 99. 1999. Pittsburgh, PA: ACM Press.

    Google Scholar 

  9. Blackmon, M.H., et al. Cognitive Walkthrough for the Web. in Human Factors in Computing Systems, CHI 2002. 2002. Minneapolis, MN: ACM Press.

    Google Scholar 

  10. Pirolli, P. Computational models of information scent-following in a very large browsable text collection. in Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, CHI’ 97. 1997. Atlanta, GA: Association for Computing Machinery.

    Google Scholar 

  11. Harman, D. Overview of the first text retrieval conference. in 16th Annual International ACM/SIGIR Conference. 1993. Pittsburgh, PA: ACM.

    Google Scholar 

  12. Morrison, J.B., P. Pirolli, and S.K. Card. A taxonomic analysis of what World Wide Web activities significantly impact people’s decisions and actions. in Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, CHI’ 01. 2001. Seattle, WA: ACM Press.

    Google Scholar 

  13. Ericsson, K.A. and H.A. Simon, Protocol Analysis: Verbal reports as data. 1984, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

    Google Scholar 

  14. Chi, E.H., et al. The Bloodhound Project: Automating discovery of Web usability issues using the InfoScent simulator. in Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, CHI 2003. 2003. Fort Lauderdale, FL: ACM Press.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. PARC, 3333 Coyote Hill Road, Palo Alto, California, 94304

    Peter Pirolli & Wai-Tat Fu

Authors
  1. Peter Pirolli
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Wai-Tat Fu
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. School of Information Sciences, Department of Information Science and Telecommunications, University of Pittsburgh, 135 North Bellefield Avenue, Pittsburgh, PA, 15260, USA

    Peter Brusilovsky

  2. Human Computer Interaction Institute, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA, 15213, USA

    Albert Corbett

  3. Intelligent Interfaces, Department of Informatics, University of Bari, Via Orabona 4, 70126, Bari, Italy

    Fiorella de Rosis

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2003 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

About this paper

Cite this paper

Pirolli, P., Fu, WT. (2003). SNIF-ACT: A Model of Information Foraging on the World Wide Web. In: Brusilovsky, P., Corbett, A., de Rosis, F. (eds) User Modeling 2003. UM 2003. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 2702. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/3-540-44963-9_8

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/3-540-44963-9_8

  • Published:

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-540-40381-4

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-540-44963-8

  • eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation