Analysis of student web browsing behavior: Implications for designing and evaluating web sites

Abstract

Although users of the World Wide Web display several distinct patterns of information use, studies of user behavior are still often designed in terms of an information-retrieval model. Such a model is more suitable for information professionals like reference librarians or database search specialists working to locate information for others, on topics they are not themselves studying (Marchionini and Schneiderman 71). Recent work on Web site usability represents an attempt to assess user success in retrieving specific information as well as to describe user behavior while determining attitudes and making judgments (Spool et al.). Such browsing is more typical of Web users than the older information-seeking model. Browsing or surfing the web represents the main model for web use, especially among younger users (Hunter, Chapter 4) who, as this paper will suggest, in some ways typify the audience technical communicators should consider in designing for the web.