World Wide Web Hypertext Linkage Patterns

The purpose of the study was to investigate the effects of various hypertext linkage patterns on the efficiency of navigating World Wide Web (WWW or Web) sites. The study also looked at the relationship between navigational efficiency and the subject's level of experience and gender, as well as any interaction effects between experience, gender, and linkage patterns. Subjects (n = 261) were randomly assigned to one of the four treatment groups based on one of the three types of hypertext linkage patters tested (linear, star, hierarchy, or random). Each subject was given specific target information they were to find on the assigned web site. Navigational efficiency was measured by counting the number of links the subject had to click to find the information and the number of times they revisited the homepage. Data were also collected through demographic and experience questionnaires and computer generated text files. Results of the analyses showed that web sites patterned after star and hierarchy linkage patterns were more efficient to navigate for informational use than were web sites patterned after linear and hierarchy linkage patterns. Females were shown to have a much more difficult time navigating arbitrary web sites than males. ********** User expectations for web sites will likely increase as Internet and Web technology facilitate greater interactivity and design. Users will likely want more interactivity and easier navigation. The term navigation is used extensively in the user interface design literature (Denning, Shuttleworth, & Smith, 1998; Nielsen & Mack, 1994; Powell, 1990; Sano, 1996) to represent how a user reaches computer screens, gives directions, or indicates decisions. Navigation in the hypertext literature has taken on the same meaning. Dillon, McKnight, and Richardson (1990) wrote that the concept of navigation is a meaningful one in the sense that one can view user actions as a movement through electronic space. Just as a sailor navigates from one continent to another, a hypertext user will navigate from a homepage to a piece of information. Both sailors and hypertext users alike typically have the option of choosing which route they take to their desired locations. A route (or a path) through a hypertext system can be explai ned as user movement from one hypertext document to another by way of hypertext links. Hypertext users will also determine which web sites to visit and which to avoid based, in part, on how easy a site is to navigate (Dillon, McKnight, & Richardson, 1990). Sites that are easy to navigate will no doubt outlast those that are confusing (Sano, 1996). "Unfortunately, many web sites today appear as if they were hurried onto the net, disregarding user's needs, requirements, and preferences" (Sano, 1996, p. 13). One of the most obvious observations of this rush to the web is the naive use of hypertext linking. The hypermedia capabilities of the Web have brought hypertext's advantages to millions of people around the world. Those advantages include the ease of creating and tracing references, the support for structuring and modularizing information in a nonlinear format, and the ability to keep many threads of information alive at once (Heller, 1990). In addition to identifying the advantages to using hypertext, the reviewers of hypertext literature often list problems. The most commonly acknowledged problem in using hypertext is navigation, or more specifically, user disorientation (Conklin, 1987; Edwards & Hardman, 1989; Gray, 1990; Hammond & Allison, 1989; Nielsen, 1990). "An overall lack of planning, coupled with a new-found fascination for hypertext link ing, usually results in a tangled mess of web pages, contributing to users being hopelessly lost in hyperspace" (Sano, 1996, p. 6). The problem of disorientation seems to be getting worse as the Web grows larger and becomes more popular (Stanton & Baber, 1994). …