Characterizing Browsing Behaviors on the World-Wide Web

Abstract

This paper presents the results of a study conducted at Georgia Institute of Technology that captured client-side user events of NCSA's X Mosaic. Actual user behavior, as determined from client-side log file analysis, supplemented our understanding of user navigation strategies as well as provided real interface usage data. Log file analysis also yielded design and usability suggestions for WWW pages, sites and browsers. The methodology of the study and findings are discussed along with future research directions.