Method Week long field study August 2004 Client-side logging with BHO

1. # Pages Visited [1] 14 per day [2] 21 per day [3] 42 per day [our results] (Table 1) 258 per day (60-732) Earlier research was captured at a single location, [3] included the holidays. High-speed internet users have been found to view more web pages and surf web more often than dial-up users. Web-mail, news sites, pop-up windows may account for increases. • Speed of Browsing • [3] noted rapid browsing with few gaps • > 10 sec./page • [our results] (Table 2) • Burst: rapid visits with < 1 minute between pages. • Average 82 seconds, 7 pages, 12 sec./page • Bursts can cross browser windows Browser Window Usage [no previous results found] [our results] (Table 1) Overall few pages viewed per window, but some windows used extensively (max 27-255 pages). Window revisits (for navigation) low. Sessions [1] ~1 every 2 days (25.5 min. cutoff) [4] 3 per day (10 min. cutoff) [5] 0.6 log-ins per day [our results] (Table 2) 9.4 per day (10 min. cutoff), 5.4 per day (30 min. cutoff) Web Browsing Today: The Impact of Changing Contexts on User Activity Kirstie Hawkey and Kori Inkpen Faculty of Computer Science, Dalhousie University {hawkey, inkpen}@cs.dal.ca Changing Contexts IE wins the browser wars Netscape Navigator dominant browser Napster Google tool bar 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. • 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)