Post-Valued Recall web pages: User disorientation hits the big time

Abstract

The growth in complexity of the World Wide Web, matched by the increase in user sophistication, has transformed the notion of user disorientation. While the retrieval of visited Web pages has been studied, the particular class of Web pages not initially recognized as being important enough to return to merits closer examination. Such pages, referred to as Post-Valued Recall (PVR) Web pages, tend to sit at the interface between the solitary act of surfing the Web and the social act of interacting with colleagues, who will often trigger the realization that a particular page is, in fact, of value. Results from a user study illustrate the effect of PVR in a social environment, as well as offer design guidelines for browser utilities that could diminish the negative impact of PVR.