Graphic and numerical methods to assess navigation in hypertext

Abstract

User navigation has been a central theme in both theoretical and empirical work since the earliest days of hypertext research and development. Studies exploring user navigation have, however, tended to rely on indirect navigational measures and have rarely tried to relate navigation to performance-solving problems or locating information. This paper proposes methods that lead to a more direct representation and analysis of user movement in hypertext and empirically explores the relationship of these measures to performance in a hypertext search task. Results of the study indicate that the proposed graphical and numerical methods have empirical significance and may be useful in assessing and modeling user navigation.