Interacting with hypertext: an experimental investigation of navigation tools

摘要

The functionality that comes from hypertext has been an important driver in the growth of electronic commerce. The appropriate use of navigation tools and design of Web sites remains, however, an open research question. The objective of this study was to compare the impact of alternative navigation tools on users’ productivity differences in the retrieving of information. The selected navigation tools are: hierarchical design both with and without page hyperlinks, sequential both with and without page hyperlinks and a search engine. A laboratory experiment tested the effect of these navigation tools. A total of 430 subjects were randomly assigned to work with one of the five navigation tools. The productivity outcomes of the subjects were measured in terms of performance on the information retrieval task, search efficiency, and the self-perception of productivity. The task was an information search of medium complexity. An analysis of the results identifies navigation tools to be a contributing factor to users’ productivity.