The information search process within a website can often be frustrating and confusing for website visitors. Navigational structures are often complex and multitiered, hiding links with several layers of navigation that user's might be interested in. Poor navigation causes user frustration. Adaptive navigation can be used to improve the user's navigational experience by flattening the navigational structure and reducing the number of accessible links to only those that the user would be interested in. This examines the effects on a user's navigational experience, of using adaptive navigation as the main navigational structure on a website. This study measured these effects by gathering survey responses from over 1,000 users. The survey recorded users' perceptions of navigational effectiveness and efficiency as well as user satisfaction and efficacy. Users were assigned into nine treatment groups that provided variations in navigational change frequency and the order of navigational links. Surveys were used to identify the effects of navigational change frequency and navigational link ordering on the user's navigational experience. The survey found that adaptive navigation works best when change occurs on a page-by-page basis and links are ordered alphabetically.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:BGMYU2/oai:scholarsarchive.byu.edu:etd-4535 |
| Date | 07 December 2012 |
| Creators | Speirs, James C. |
| Publisher | BYU ScholarsArchive |
| Source Sets | Brigham Young University |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | Theses and Dissertations |
| Rights | http://lib.byu.edu/about/copyright/ |
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