Paper Info
Title
Explicitness of local navigational links: comprehension, perceptions of use, and browsing behavior
Abstract
This study investigated the effect of explicitness of navigational links on comprehension, perceptions of use, and browsing behaviour in an informational web site. The purpose was to determine whether link explicitness would assist users in overcoming cognitive overload and disorientation. Subjects took a pre-knowledge survey, browsed web pages in one of four link explicitness conditions, and took a post-browsing survey on comprehension and perceptions of use. Link explicitness differentially affected the outcome measures. Organizationally explicit navigational links resulted in lower scores on the post-comprehension survey. A combined condition of semantically and organizationally explicit links resulted in subjects reporting that they followed more embedded links. Traditional links and semantically/organizationally explicit links resulted in subjects exploring more of the study web site. These results, together with subjects' comments and webserver log files, indicate that navigational link labels clearly affect user performance - ambiguous link labels degrade comprehension and constrain browsing; traditional navigational links and links that provide dual signaling encourage broader sampling of a web site.
Year
DOI
Venue
2007
10.1177/0165551506068144
J. Information Science
Keywords
DocType
Volume
internet-based experiment,navigational link,ambiguous link label,Organizationally explicit navigational,browsing behavior,link explicitness,navigational link label,traditional link,navigation,browsing behaviour,traditional navigational link,link labels,link explicitness condition,organizationally explicit link,embedded link,comprehension,local navigational link
Journal
33
Issue
ISSN
Citations 
1
0165-5515
6
PageRank 
References 
Authors
0.77
20
2
Name
Order
Citations
PageRank
Kathryn A. Mobrand191.56
Jan H. Spyridakis2324.83