The Bloodhound project: automating discovery of web usability issues using the InfoScent simulator

Abstract

Usability Issues using the InfoScent ™ Simulator According to usability experts, the top user issue for Web sites is difficult navigation. We have been developing automated usability tools for several years, and here we describe a prototype service called InfoScent ™ Bloodhound Simulator, a push-button navigation analysis system, which automatically analyzes the information cues on a Web site to produce a usability report. We further build upon previous algorithms to create a method called Information Scent Absorption Rate, which measures the navigability of a site by computing the probability of users reaching the desired destinations on the site. Lastly, we present a user study involving 244 subjects over 1385 user sessions that shows how Bloodhound correlates with real users surfing for informatio