The Plight of the Navigator: Solving the Navigation Problem for Wireless Portals

  • Authors:
  • Barry Smyth;Paul Cotter

  • Affiliations:
  • -;-

  • Venue:
  • AH '02 Proceedings of the Second International Conference on Adaptive Hypermedia and Adaptive Web-Based Systems
  • Year:
  • 2002

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Abstract

The wireless Internet, as epitomized by the first generation of WAP-enabled phones and portals, has failed to meet user expectations, resulting in limited take-up, and poor revenue growth for mobile operators. A combination of factors has been responsible: unreliable early handsets; poor content; slow connections; and portals that were difficult to use and navigate. Today, the first 3 of these issues have been solved (or are about to be) by improved handsets, high-quality content and high-speed infrastructure such as GPRS. However, portal usability remains a key problem limiting the ease with which users can locate and benefit from wireless content services. In this paper we describe how personalized navigation techniques can greatly enhance the usability of information services in general, and WAP portals in particular, by personalizing the navigation structure of a portal to the learned preferences of individual users, and how this has resulted in increased WAP usage in live user trials.