An evaluation of landmarks for re-finding information on the web

Abstract

Re-finding information on the Web is a common yet often time consuming and challenging task. Even with the use of traditional bookmarks, which allow users to return to a previously visited page, it can be hard to re-find facts within that page. Furthermore, it is not uncommon for users to have long and unmanageable lists of bookmarks, making it difficult to identify the purpose of individual bookmarks. In this paper, we present an extension to traditional bookmarks called landmarks, a user-directed technique that aids users in returning to specific content within a previously visited web page. We investigate the efficiency of landmarks for re-finding information on web pages and present the findings of a study in which participants were first primed on two web pages and returned at a later date to re-find the information using both traditional bookmarks and landmarks.