Document Type

Article

Publication Date

5-2010

Publication Source

Information Processing and Management

Abstract

We present an analysis of a progressive series of out-of-turn transformations on a hierarchical website to personalize a user’s interaction with the site. We formalize the transformation in graph-theoretic terms and describe a toolkit we built that enumerates all of the traversals enabled by every possible complete series of these transformations in any site and computes a variety of metrics while simulating each traversal therein to qualify the relationship between a site’s structure and the cumulative effect of support for the transformation in a site. We employed this toolkit in two websites. The results indicate that the transformation enables users to experience a vast number of paths through a site not traversable through browsing and demonstrate that it supports traversals with multiple steps, where the semblance of a hierarchy is preserved, as well as shortcuts directly to the desired information.

Inclusive pages

284-294

ISBN/ISSN

0306-4573

Document Version

Postprint

Comments

Accepted for publication in Information Processing and Management. Final published version of the paper is available from the publisher.

Publisher

Pergamon Press

Place of Publication

Tarrytown, NY

Volume

46

Peer Reviewed

yes

Issue

3

Keywords

hierarchical hypermedia, information personalization, navigation, out-of-turn interaction, website transformation

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