An empirical study of web site navigation structures' impacts on web site usability

Authors:
Xiang Fang;Clyde W. Holsapple
Affiliations:
DSC and MIS Department, Richard T. Farmer School of Business Administration, Miami University, Oxford, Ohio 45056, United States;DSIS Area, Gatton College of Business and Economics, University of Kentucky, Lexington, Kentucky 40506-0034, United States
Venue:
Decision Support Systems
Year:
2007

Citing 26
Cited 17

Computer graphics: principles and practice (2nd ed.)

Computer graphics: principles and practice (2nd ed.)
Usability—context, framework, definition, design and evaluation

Human factors for informatics usability
The influence of hypertext linking structures on the efficiency of information retrieval

Human Factors
Mental models: concepts for human-computer interaction research

International Journal of Man-Machine Studies
Measuring usability: preference vs. performance

Communications of the ACM
An empirical evaluation of knowledge, cognitive style, and structure upon the performance of a hypertext task

International Journal of Human-Computer Interaction
Information privacy: measuring individuals' concerns about organizational practices

MIS Quarterly
Designing information-abundant web sites: issues and recommendations

International Journal of Human-Computer Studies - Special issue: World Wide Web usability
Web site engineering: beyond Web page design

Web site engineering: beyond Web page design
The effect of navigation map types and cognitive styles on learners' performance in a computer-networked hypertext learning system

Journal of Educational Multimedia and Hypermedia
Chartjunk or goldgraph? Effects of persenataion objectives and content desirability on information presentation: effects of presentation objectives and content desirability on information presentation

MIS Quarterly
Current technological impediments to business-to-consumer electronic commerce

Communications of the AIS
Web Site Usability Handbook with Cdrom

Web Site Usability Handbook with Cdrom
Designing Web Usability: The Practice of Simplicity

Designing Web Usability: The Practice of Simplicity
Designing the User Interface: Strategies for Effective Human-Computer Interaction

Designing the User Interface: Strategies for Effective Human-Computer Interaction
Homepage Usability: 50 Websites Deconstructed

Homepage Usability: 50 Websites Deconstructed
Human-Computer Interaction

Human-Computer Interaction
Using protocol analysis to evaluate the usability of a commercial web site

Information and Management
Assessing users' subjective quality of experience with the world wide web: an exploratory examination of temporal changes in technology acceptance

International Journal of Human-Computer Studies
Knowledge manipulation activities: results of a Delphi study

Information and Management
Assessing a Firm's Web Presence: A Heuristic Evaluation Procedure for the Measurement of Usability

Information Systems Research
Web Site Usability, Design, and Performance Metrics

Information Systems Research
Architecture of Systems Problem Solving

Architecture of Systems Problem Solving
User interface consistency across end-user applications: the effects on mental models

Journal of Management Information Systems - Special section: Managing virtual workplaces and teleworking with information technology
The Role of Interface in Electronic Commerce: Consumer Involvement with Print Versus On-Line Catalogs

International Journal of Electronic Commerce
The minimal manual

Human-Computer Interaction

The structure of Web-based information systems satisfaction: Testing of competing models

Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology
Assessing anti-phishing preparedness: A study of online banks in Hong Kong

Decision Support Systems
Designing usable online stores: A landscape preference perspective

Information and Management
Attributes of Web Site Usability: A Study of Web Users with the Repertory Grid Technique

International Journal of Electronic Commerce
Finding unexpected navigation behaviour in clickstream data for website design improvement

Journal of Web Engineering
What signal are you sending? how website quality influences perceptions of product quality and purchase intentions

MIS Quarterly
Impacts of navigation structure, task complexity, and users' domain knowledge on Web site usability--an empirical study

Information Systems Frontiers
Understanding of website usability: Specifying and measuring constructs and their relationships

Decision Support Systems
Internet-based knowledge acquisition: Task complexity and performance

Decision Support Systems
Constructing a reliable Web graph with information on browsing behavior

Decision Support Systems
Determining importance degrees of website design parameters based on interactions and types of websites

Decision Support Systems
A quality evaluation model for the design quality of online shopping websites

Electronic Commerce Research and Applications
Using eye-tracking to test and improve website design

DUXU'13 Proceedings of the Second international conference on Design, User Experience, and Usability: design philosophy, methods, and tools - Volume Part I
From the ground-up: role of usability and aesthetics evaluation in creating a knowledge-based website for the u.s. army corps of engineers

DUXU'13 Proceedings of the Second international conference on Design, User Experience, and Usability: web, mobile, and product design - Volume Part IV
Evaluating the perceived and estimated quality in use of Web 2.0 applications

Journal of Systems and Software
Usability Evaluation of Pakistani Security Agencies Websites

International Journal of E-Politics
A machine learning-based usability evaluation method for eLearning systems

Decision Support Systems

Quantified Score

Hi-index	0.00

Visualization

Abstract

Web sites are intended to facilitate knowledge acquisition, often in the interest of supporting decision making. Based on a taxonomy of factors influencing Web site usability, hypotheses are developed about usability of alternative navigation structures. These hypotheses are tested via experiments that measure user performance in accomplishing knowledge acquisition tasks and user perceptions of usability. Two rounds of experimentation are performed for both simple and relatively complex task sets. Results show that a usage-oriented hierarchy or a combined hierarchy is a navigation structure associated with significantly higher usability than subject-oriented hierarchies, for both simple and relatively complex knowledge acquisition tasks.