Method

1
Web Browsing Today The Impact of Changing
Contexts on User Activity Kirstie Hawkey and
Kori Inkpen Faculty of Computer Science,
Dalhousie University hawkey, inkpen_at_cs.dal.ca
Changing Contexts
IE wins the browser wars
Netscape Navigator dominant browser
Google tool bar
Napster
High-speed dedicated line
Females 50 of web users
Internet a daily tool at work and at home
14.4 or 28.8K dial-up
56K dial-up
Typical user male, young, educated
10,000 websites
1 2

3
4 5
our
study
1994 1995 1996
1997 1998
1999 2000
2001 2002 2003
2004

• Method
• Week long field study August 2004
• Client-side logging with BHO
• Recorded all pages viewed (document
• level, not frames/images)
• Web sites were blinded to encourage
• normal browsing activity
• Participants
• 20 laptop users (16 M, 4F 19-47)
• Highly educated, primarily technical
• On avg. 22-28 hrs/wk web browsing

• Impact of Changes in Browsing Behaviour
• Need for seamless interactions
• between user and tool
• Sheer number of pages visited make
• manual tools that operate on the
• per-page level impractical
• Often rapid speed of browsing
• Behaviours vary considerably both
• across users and within the browsing
• of a single user
• Solutions must accommodate the
• changing needs and behaviours of
• users.

Burst (1 minute cutoff) Burst (1 minute cutoff) Burst (1 minute cutoff) Burst (1 minute cutoff) Burst (1 minute cutoff) Burst (1 minute cutoff) Session (10 minute cutoff) Session (10 minute cutoff) Session (10 minute cutoff) Session (10 minute cutoff) Session (10 minute cutoff) Session (10 minute cutoff)
Speed Duration Duration Length Length Speed Duration Duration Length Length
Quartile Avg. Avg. Max. Avg. Max. Avg. Avg. Max. Avg. Max.
0 43 8 0.8 5 4 22 14 15 7 38 12 58
25 156 11 1.2 7 6 38 48 29 9 59 18 105
50 264 12 1.4 11 7 51 66 33 12 75 25 143
75 324 13 1.6 13 8 81 82 38 14 88 32 237
100 510 17 2.1 36 17 172 123 59 23 177 57 394
Mean 258 12 1.4 12 7 63 66 35 13 79 28 174
Table 2. Quartile and mean values for the number of episodes, speed (seconds per page), duration (minutes) and length (pages) of bursts (1 minute cutoff) and sessions (10 minute cutoff) over the course of the week. Table 2. Quartile and mean values for the number of episodes, speed (seconds per page), duration (minutes) and length (pages) of bursts (1 minute cutoff) and sessions (10 minute cutoff) over the course of the week. Table 2. Quartile and mean values for the number of episodes, speed (seconds per page), duration (minutes) and length (pages) of bursts (1 minute cutoff) and sessions (10 minute cutoff) over the course of the week. Table 2. Quartile and mean values for the number of episodes, speed (seconds per page), duration (minutes) and length (pages) of bursts (1 minute cutoff) and sessions (10 minute cutoff) over the course of the week. Table 2. Quartile and mean values for the number of episodes, speed (seconds per page), duration (minutes) and length (pages) of bursts (1 minute cutoff) and sessions (10 minute cutoff) over the course of the week. Table 2. Quartile and mean values for the number of episodes, speed (seconds per page), duration (minutes) and length (pages) of bursts (1 minute cutoff) and sessions (10 minute cutoff) over the course of the week. Table 2. Quartile and mean values for the number of episodes, speed (seconds per page), duration (minutes) and length (pages) of bursts (1 minute cutoff) and sessions (10 minute cutoff) over the course of the week. Table 2. Quartile and mean values for the number of episodes, speed (seconds per page), duration (minutes) and length (pages) of bursts (1 minute cutoff) and sessions (10 minute cutoff) over the course of the week. Table 2. Quartile and mean values for the number of episodes, speed (seconds per page), duration (minutes) and length (pages) of bursts (1 minute cutoff) and sessions (10 minute cutoff) over the course of the week. Table 2. Quartile and mean values for the number of episodes, speed (seconds per page), duration (minutes) and length (pages) of bursts (1 minute cutoff) and sessions (10 minute cutoff) over the course of the week. Table 2. Quartile and mean values for the number of episodes, speed (seconds per page), duration (minutes) and length (pages) of bursts (1 minute cutoff) and sessions (10 minute cutoff) over the course of the week. Table 2. Quartile and mean values for the number of episodes, speed (seconds per page), duration (minutes) and length (pages) of bursts (1 minute cutoff) and sessions (10 minute cutoff) over the course of the week. Table 2. Quartile and mean values for the number of episodes, speed (seconds per page), duration (minutes) and length (pages) of bursts (1 minute cutoff) and sessions (10 minute cutoff) over the course of the week.
Pages Per Window Pages Per Window Pages Per Window Window Revisits (navigation activity) Window Revisits (navigation activity)
Quartile Pages Visited Browser Windows Mean Mode Max Total Per Window
0 422 47 3 1 27 22 .27
25 1064 134 5 2 55 90 .40
50 1508 246 7 2 92 125 .53
75 2133 441 9 2 170 216 .68
100 5127 799 20 2 255 430 3.72
Mean 1808 289 8 1.85 108 167 .68
Table 1. Quartile and mean values for number of pages visited and browser window usage over the week Table 1. Quartile and mean values for number of pages visited and browser window usage over the week Table 1. Quartile and mean values for number of pages visited and browser window usage over the week Table 1. Quartile and mean values for number of pages visited and browser window usage over the week Table 1. Quartile and mean values for number of pages visited and browser window usage over the week Table 1. Quartile and mean values for number of pages visited and browser window usage over the week Table 1. Quartile and mean values for number of pages visited and browser window usage over the week Table 1. Quartile and mean values for number of pages visited and browser window usage over the week

• Comparison Difficulties
• Methodologies differ greatly
• Logging software location (client-
• side, server-side, proxy)
• Definition of page visited (cached
• pages, navigated to, fully loaded,
• frames, page elements such as
• images)
• Date of the study
• Speed of Internet connection
• Browser functionality
• of total browsing captured
• Location of browsing captured

• Previous Research
• 1 1994 Catledge Pitkow, Characterizing
• Browsing Strategies in the WWW (pub. 1995)
• 2 1995 Tauscher Greenberg, Revisitation
• Patterns in WWW Navigation (pub. 1997)
• 3 1999-2000 Cockburn McKenzie, What Do
• Web Users Do? An Empirical Analysis of
• Web Use (pub. 2001)
• 4 Circa 2000 Grace-Martin Gay, Web
• Browsing, Mobile Computing and Academic
• Performance (pub. 2001)
• 5 Circa 2001-2002 Jackson et al., Internet
• Attitudes and Internet Use Some Surprising
• Findings from the Homenettoo Project (pub.
• 2003)