Important Works for Web Navigation
NOTE: This list was last updated sometime in 2002.
The following are works I have personally found to be foundational to a study of Web navigation. If one wants to be introduced to this area of study in 25 references or less, below are the 25 I would recommend.
Some of these papers are available online, in which case I
have provided a link.
For papers available at the ACM Digital Library, if you
are viewing this page from a
Bush (1945)
Bush, V. (1945). As we may think. Atlantic Monthly, 176, 101-108.
Generally believed to introduce the conceptual beginnings
of hypertext systems such as the World Wide Web: the “Memex” machine. Sections 6-8 are particularly
fascinating and relevant. A great starting point for inspiration.
ACM
Digital Library (reprinted)
Tolman (1948)
Tolman, E.C. (1948). Cognitive maps in
rats and men. The Psychological Review,
55(4), 189-208.
Whether
user mental models of Web sites are spatial in nature is debatable, but Tolman’s paper is nonetheless a landmark study (no
pun intended) with useful navigation concepts.
Canter, Rivers, & Storrs (1985)
Canter, D., R. Rivers, & G. Storrs
(1985). Characterizing user navigation through complex data structures. Behaviour and Information Technology, 4(2),
93-102.
Maps out the sorts of ways a user might navigate through
an information space.
Furnas (1986)
Furnas, G.W. (1986). Generalized fisheye views. CHI ’86, Human Factors in Computing
Systems, 16-23.
An earlier and more complete version:
Furnas, G.W. (1981). The FISHEYE view: a new look at
structured files. Technical Report 81-11221-9,
The earlier version is reprinted in Card, MacKinlay, & Shneiderman
(1999).
ACM
Digital Library (CHI ’86 version)
Conklin (1987)
Conklin, J. (1987). Hypertext: an introduction and survey.
IEEE Computer, 20(7), 17-41.
The essential concepts of cognitive overhead and
disorientation in hypertext are introduced.
Halasz (1987)
Halasz, F.G. (1987). Reflections on Notecards: seven issues for the next generation of hypermedia systems. ACM Hypertext ’87, 345-365.
Some of the basic issues that arose out of the development of early hypertext systems, many of which are taken for granted today.
Marchionini & Shneiderman (1988)
Marchionini, G. & B. Shneiderman (1988). Finding facts vs. browsing knowledge in hypertext systems. IEEE Computer, 21(1), 70-80.
Useful discussion of hypertext structural attributes, incidental learning, and navigation behavior and performance.
DeRose (1989)
DeRose,
S.J. (1989). Expanding the notion of links. ACM Hypertext ’89, 249-257.
Introduces a taxonomy of hyperlinks. Nice starting place for basic hypertext issues and concepts.
Edwards & Hardman (1989)
Edwards, D.M. & L. Hardman (1989). Lost in hyperspace:
cognitive mapping and navigation in a hypertext environment. In R. McAleese (Ed.), Hypertext:
Theory and Practice.
Good starting place for exploring issues of disorientation and mixed navigational support in hypertext.
Nielsen (1989)
Nielsen, J. (1989). The matters that really matter for
hypertext usability. ACM Hypertext
’89, 239-248.
Nice meta analysis of many of the early hypertext usability
studies.
Simpson & McKnight (1989)
Simpson, A. & C. McKnight (1989). Navigation in
hypertext: structural cues and mental maps. In R. McAleese
& C. Green (Eds.), Hypertext: State
of the Art.
Thorough review of a research space often applicable to Web navigation research: behavior in menu-driven systems.
Thüring, Haake,
& Hannemann (1991)
Thüring, M., J.M. Haake,
& J. Hannemann (1991). What’s Eliza doing
in the Chinese Room? Incoherent hyperdocuments
– and how to avoid them. ACM
Hypertext ’91, 161-177.
Useful theoretical analysis of navigation in hypertexts.
Discusses important concepts such as local and global coherence in an
information space.
Botafogo, Rivlin,
& Shneiderman (1992)
Botafogo, R.A., E. Rivlin,
& B. Shneiderman (1992). Structural analysis of
hypertexts: identifying hierarchies and useful metrics. ACM Transactions on Information Systems, 10(2), 142-180.
An important analysis of hypertexts, based on the common view of these systems as
directed graphs. Discusses concepts such as compactness, stratum,
and back second-order connectedness, and their relevance to Web navigation.
Berners-Lee, Cailliau, Luotonen, Nielsen, & Secret (1994)
Berners-Lee, T., R. Cailliau, A.
Luotonen, H.F. Nielsen, & A. Secret (1994). The
World-Wide Web. Communications of the
ACM, 37(8), 76-82.
Catledge & Pitkow (1995)
Catledge, L. & J. Pitkow
(1995). Characterizing browsing strategies in the World Wide Web. Computer Networks and ISDN Systems, 27,
1065-1073.
A staggering amount of click-stream Web navigation data is
analyzed. Back button use and link following are found to dominate user
activity on the Web. The concept of hub-and-spoke traversal is introduced.
Marchionini (1995)
Marchionini, G.M. (1995). Information Seeking in Electronic
Environments.
Nicely breaks down the act of information-seeking into its
component parts.
Furnas (1997)
Furnas, G.W. (1997). Effective view navigation. CHI ’97, Human Factors in Computing
Systems, 367-374.
One of the most useful and interesting theoretical analyses of
navigation in information spaces. Discusses the notion of information
residue.
Tauscher & Greenberg (1997)
Tauscher, L.M. &
Web navigation is characterized as a recurrent system, and
shown to involve a high degree of recency revisitation.
A shorter version:
Tauscher, L.M. &
ACM
Digital Library (shorter version)
Huberman, Pirolli,
Pitkow, & Lukose
(1998)
Huberman, B.A., P. Pirolli,
J. Pitkow, & R.M. Lukose
(1998). Strong regularities in World Wide Web surfing. Science, 280(5360), 95-97.
Card, Mackinlay, & Shneiderman (1999)
Card, S.K., J.D. Mackinlay,
& B. Shneiderman (Eds.) (1999).
A collection of classic papers in the field of Information Visualization, many of which explore new ways of supporting Web navigators.
Greenberg & Cockburn (1999)
Greenberg, S., & A. Cockburn (1999). Getting Back to
Back: alternative behaviors for a Web browser’s Back button. Proceedings of the Fifth Annual Human
Factors and the Web Conference.
Pirolli & Card (1999)
Pirolli, P. & S.K. Card (1999).
Information Foraging. Psychological
Review, 106(4), 643-675.
An important theory applied to Web navigation in a number
of subsequent works, making use of the concept of information scent, similar
to Furnas’ residue.
See the
PARC User Interface
Research (UIR) page for some important work in
Web navigation.
Otter & Johnson (2000)
Otter, M. & H. Johnson (2000). Lost in hyperspace:
metrics and mental models. Interacting
with Computers, 13(1), 1-40.
Nice starting point for a metric-based approach to
disorientation on the Web.
Cockburn & McKenzie (2001)
Cockburn, A. & B. McKenzie (2001). What do Web users
do? An empirical analysis of Web use. International
Journal of Human-Computer Studies, 54(6), 903-922.
Web browsing is described as rapidly interactive. A much higher basic revisitation rate (81%) than that of the Tauscher and Greenberg (1997) study is argued for, based on analysis of longer navigation periods. Great discussion on the implications of user revisitation behaviors on the Web.