Navigational Consistency in Websites: What Does it Mean to Users?

Helen Petrie, George Papadofragkakis, Christopher Power, David Swallow

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingChapter

Abstract

A Study was conducted to investigate the effects of navigational inconsistencies in websites on users' perceptions and performance. Of four inconsistencies manipulated (position of navigational bar, order of elements in navigational bar, Font type and size of elements), only the position of the bar had a substantial effect. However this affected both users' perception of their performance and their actual performance, in terms of the time spent on webpages. The mean time spent on the page with the inconsistently positioned navigational bar more than doubled and this effect persisted over subsequent pages. The methodology developed provides a useful way of investigating the effects of navigational inconsistency, an under-studied phenomenon.

Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationHUMAN-COMPUTER INTERACTION - INTERACT 2009, PT I
EditorsT Gross, J Gulliksen, P Kotze, L Oestreicher, P Palanque, RO Prates
Place of PublicationBERLIN
PublisherSpringer
Pages423-427
Number of pages5
Volume5726
EditionPART 1
ISBN (Print)978-3-642-03654-5
Publication statusPublished - 2009
Event12th IFIP International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction - Uppsala
Duration: 24 Aug 200928 Aug 2009

Publication series

NameLecture Notes in Computer Science
PublisherSpringer Berlin / Heidelberg

Conference

Conference12th IFIP International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction
CityUppsala
Period24/08/0928/08/09

Bibliographical note

10.1007/978-3-642-03655-2_46

Keywords

  • Website navigation
  • navigational consistency
  • website usability
  • WEB NAVIGATION

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