An examination of user behaviour during web information tasks

• Authors: Melanie Kellar
• Venue: An examination of user behaviour during web information tasks
• Year: 2007

Since the inception of electronic environments, researchers have been interested in how to provide better support for the tasks users perform in these environments. The research presented in this thesis is the result of three successive studies conducted to examine user behaviour within the web browser in the context of task. An exploratory field study was first conducted to examine how users interact with their web browsers during information seeking tasks on the Web. Based on the study findings a characterization of web information tasks was developed, which includes: Fact Finding, Information Gathering, Browsing, Communications, Transactions, and Maintenance. The study also found significant differences in how users interacted with their web browsers to complete these tasks. The findings from the field study also highlighted the fact that little is known about the monitoring activities of web users, which occur when users return to previously visited web pages to view new or updated information. As a next step, a series of semi-structured interviews were conducted to concentrate on the role of web-based monitoring in the context of web information tasks. The results from this study suggested that monitoring is an activity that occurs, to varying degrees, within all web information tasks. This implies that information monitoring activities require different types of web browser support, depending on the underlying web information task. Based on the study results, a series of recommendations for the design of task-specific tools to support web-based monitoring were developed. A laboratory study was then conducted to evaluate three task-specific web browser monitoring tools, which were developed based on the recommendations resulting from the semi-structured interviews. The results of this third study reinforced the notion that different monitoring activities require different types of support and also yielded several potential improvements to the tools. The findings from these three studies provide new understanding of (1) the tasks users engage in on the Web; (2) how users interact with their web browsers to complete these tasks; and (3) how web browsers can better support users during these tasks.