Visualization and analysis of clickstream data of online stores with a parallel coordinate system

Abstract

Clickstreams are visitors’ path through a Web site. Analysis of clickstreams shows how a Web site is navigated and used by its visitors. Clickstream data of online stores contains information useful for understanding the effectiveness of marketing and merchandising efforts. In this paper, we present a visualization system that provides users with greater abilities to interpret and explore clickstream data of online stores. The system visualizes a large number of clickstreams by assigning parallel coordinates to sequential steps in clickstreams. To demonstrate how the presented visualization system provides capabilities for examining online store clickstreams, we present a series of parallel coordinate visualizations, which display clickstream data from an operating online retail store.