86 research outputs found
The effect of contrasting selected graphical elements of a web page on information retrieval time
As online presence plays an increasingly important role in corporate success, the high usability of a companyâs website becomes one of its most valuable assets. The time required to reach the needed information, which plays a key role among the many factors that influence a websiteâs usability, depends to a significant degree on the siteâs design. The perception of the visual aspects of design is in turn influenced by various so-called âvisual meansâ. This term encompasses a range of methods, procedures or techniques of using elements of graphical design to achieve the desired effect, which should be applied according not only to the informational content of the site, but also to the designerâs overall vision, i.e. the graphical layout of the site. Therefore, it can be said that a usable website design is largely dependent on the siteâs composition, understood as maintaining the appropriate relations between its form and content. One of methods for increasing the visibility of a given graphical element is highlighting its distinctness, difference from other elements. This method is called contrasting. This article presents the methodology and a discussion of the results of original research into the impact of contrasting chosen text elements on the home page of a website on the time needed by a user to reach the information "privileged" by such a procedure
Preferred Types of Academic Websites Accessed and Used by Students at Maasai Mara University During 2012/2013 Academic Year
Advancement in technologies has led to the migration of print information to web in universities. Maasai Mara University (MMU) is investing highly on web-based information resource to meet the growing needs of their users and supplement their limited library print collection. Despite this effort, there has been low usage of academic websites by students. This paper seeks to determine range and form of academic websites accessed and used by MMU students. The paper used the survey research design to collect the views and opinions of respondents. The target population was 4,947 students in which a sample of 362 students participated in the study. Data was collected using questionnaires and participant-observation and analyzed using descriptive and hierarchical linear methods for quantitative and qualitative data respectively. Presentation of data used descriptive statistics such as frequencies and percentages. The findings revealed that although the students visited varied academic websites including institutional, scholarly, research, educational and academic library websites, majority preferred scholarly websites. Study and learning, assignments and research were cited as main reasons for using academic websites. The findings established that relevancy of a site is the major determinant preference Maasai Mara University students choose when they access and use academic websites. The study concluded that Maasai Mara University students demonstrated a reasonably high level of awareness and use of academic websites. From the findings the study recommended that MMU library develops comprehensive continuous training programs that address information retrieval and literacy skills for its patrons on effective identification, selection, access and use of academic websites and that the university invest in more computer laboratories and high-speed internet bandwidth to ease access and use to academic websites. Keywords: Academic websites, websites, web-based information resources, librar
Adding dimensions to the analysis of the quality of health information of websites returned by Google. Cluster analysis identifies patterns of websites according to their classification and the type of intervention described.
Background and aims: Most of the instruments used to assess the quality of health information on the Web (e.g. the JAMA criteria) only analyze one dimension of information quality, trustworthiness. We try to compare these characteristics with the type of treatments the website describe, whether evidence-based medicine or note, and correlate this with the established criteria.
Methods: We searched Google for âmigraine cureâ and analyzed the first 200 websites for: 1) JAMA criteria (authorship, attribution, disclosure, currency); 2) class of websites (commercial, health portals, professional, patient groups, no-profit); and 3) type of intervention described (approved drugs, alternative medicine, food, procedures, lifestyle, drugs still at the research stage). We used hierarchical cluster analysis to assess associations between classes of websites and types of intervention described. Subgroup analysis on the first 10 websites returned was performed. Results: Google returned health portals (44%), followed by commercial websites (31%) and journalism websites (11%). The type of intervention mentioned most often was alternative medicine (55%), followed by procedures (49%), lifestyle (42%), food (41%) and approved drugs (35%). Cluster analysis indicated that health portals are more likely to describe more than one type of treatment while commercial websites most often describe only one. The average JAMA score of commercial websites was significantly lower than for health portals or journalism websites, and this was mainly due to lack of information on the authors of the text and indication of the date the information was written. Looking at the first 10 websites from Google, commercial websites are under-represented and approved drugs over-represented. Conclusions: This approach allows the appraisal of the quality of health-related information on the Internet focusing on the type of therapies/prevention methods that are shown to the patient
Evaluating the retrieval effectiveness of Web search engines using a representative query sample
Search engine retrieval effectiveness studies are usually small-scale, using
only limited query samples. Furthermore, queries are selected by the
researchers. We address these issues by taking a random representative sample
of 1,000 informational and 1,000 navigational queries from a major German
search engine and comparing Google's and Bing's results based on this sample.
Jurors were found through crowdsourcing, data was collected using specialised
software, the Relevance Assessment Tool (RAT). We found that while Google
outperforms Bing in both query types, the difference in the performance for
informational queries was rather low. However, for navigational queries, Google
found the correct answer in 95.3 per cent of cases whereas Bing only found the
correct answer 76.6 per cent of the time. We conclude that search engine
performance on navigational queries is of great importance, as users in this
case can clearly identify queries that have returned correct results. So,
performance on this query type may contribute to explaining user satisfaction
with search engines
Factuality Checking in News Headlines with Eye Tracking
We study whether it is possible to infer if a news headline is true or false
using only the movement of the human eyes when reading news headlines. Our
study with 55 participants who are eye-tracked when reading 108 news headlines
(72 true, 36 false) shows that false headlines receive statistically
significantly less visual attention than true headlines. We further build an
ensemble learner that predicts news headline factuality using only eye-tracking
measurements. Our model yields a mean AUC of 0.688 and is better at detecting
false than true headlines. Through a model analysis, we find that eye-tracking
25 users when reading 3-6 headlines is sufficient for our ensemble learner.Comment: Accepted to SIGIR 202
Health information quality of websites on periodontology
Aim: This study aimed to assess the quality of the information available on the Web on gum disease.
Methods: The term âgum diseaseâ was searched in Google and in MedlinePlus. The first 200 websites were analysed by the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) criteria and the Health On the Net Foundation (HONCode) certification, instruments for assessing quality of health information. Data was analysed through the Mann-Whitney test or KruskalWallis test, followed by the Dunnâs test, using the GraphPad Prism Software version 6.
Results: MedlinePlus presented a significantly higher JAMA score than Google. Googleâs first ten results had a higher JAMA score than the remaining websites. Journalism and health portals are the most reliable affiliations, while commercial and dental practices had low JAMA scores. JAMA score was significantly higher in websites with the HONCode certification compared to the ones without it.
Conclusion: There are current concerns regarding patientsâ use of the Internet for accessing health information. However, the conclusion we can make is that Google seems to favour websites with high quality information, at least in terms of JAMA score or HONCode accreditation. The JAMA score of dental practicesâ websites could be improved by providing basic information such as authorship and date
L'utilisation des moteurs de recherche par les jeunes : Impact des connaissances du domaine et des connaissances procédurales sur les stratégies d'exploration visuelle
International audienceDans une expĂ©rimentation conduite avec 53 Ă©lĂšves de CM2 utilisant la technique de l'oculomĂ©trie, nous tentons de mieux comprendre les stratĂ©gies d'exploration visuelle utilisĂ©es par de trĂšs jeunes usagers lors d'une tĂąche de recherche d'information sur le Web. Plus prĂ©cisĂ©ment, notre Ă©tude vise d'une part, Ă dĂ©terminer si plusieurs types de stratĂ©gies d'exploration visuelle d'une page de rĂ©sultats proposĂ©s par un moteur de recherche (ou SERP) peuvent ĂȘtre dĂ©terminĂ©s et d'autre part, si des facteurs psychologiques (ici, les connaissances du domaine et les connaissances procĂ©durales) peuvent influencer ces stratĂ©gies. Nos rĂ©sultats ont principalement montrĂ© d'une part, que quatre stratĂ©gies d'exploration visuelle peuvent effectivement ĂȘtre distinguĂ©es et d'autre part, que le niveau de connaissances procĂ©durales influence ces mĂȘmes stratĂ©gies
Effects of search intent on eye-movement patterns in a change detection task
The goal of the present study was to examine whether intention type affects eye movement patterns in a change detection task In addition, we assessed whether the eye movement index could be used to identify human implicit intent. We attempted to generate three types of intent amongst the study participants, dividing them into one of three conditions; each condition received different information regarding an impending change to the visual stimuli. In the ânavigational intentâ condition, participants were asked to look for any interesting objects, and were not given any more information about the impending change. In the âlow-specific intentâ condition, participants were informed that a change would occur. In the âhigh-specific intentâ condition, participants were told that a change would occur, and that an object would disappear. In addition to this main change detection task, participants also had to perform a primary task, in which they were required to name aloud the colors of objects in the pre-change scene. This allowed us to control for the visual searching process during the pre-change scene. The main results were as follows: firstly, the primary task successfully controlled for the visual search process during the pre-change scene, establishing that there were no differences in the patterns of eye movements across all three conditions despite differing intents. Secondly, we observed significantly different patterns of eye movement between the conditions in the post-change scene, suggesting that generating a specific intent for change detection yields a distinctive pattern of eye-movements. Finally, discriminant function analysis showed a reasonable classification rate for identifying a specific intent. Taken together, it was found that both participant intent and the specificity of information provided to the participants affect eye movements in a change detection task
Joint Analysis of Static and Dynamic Importance in the Eye-Tracking Records of Web Page Readers
Heat maps highlight cumulative, static importance in eye-tracking records, while network analysis helps to elucidate dynamic importance from transitional relations. The present study was designed to perform both analyses in the same conceptual framework, i.e., network representation. For this purpose, heat maps comprising 5 Ă 5 segments were overlaid with networks, both of which were produced from the eye-tracking records of 20 subjects who read 10 top web pages that were classified into three layout types. The heat of the segments was graded on the basis of five percentile scores, whereas the core-peripheral nodes were identified by the agreement of centrality and ranking indices. The congruence between the two types of importance was generally good at the node level and the community levels. Additional findings included a) mixed patterns of the sustained fixations (i.e., loops) within the total fixations, and b) an increase in reciprocity as the network scope was narrowed to communities and then to the core neighborhoods
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