Quantifying Lost in Hyperspace

Smith (1996) proposed a measure of "lostness" in hypertext structures that centers around page revisits.  The lostness measure shown below, from a data table from the Uzilla.net reporting application , depicts the most lost users in a recent test. 

Sorted by lostness ascending, the pictured users exhibit high rates of page revisitation which Smith argues indicates the users are lost.  Efficiency on the other hand takes into account redundant page views, but also deals with the total number of page views versus the minimal (or "optimal") number.  The two measures are correlated but not perfectly, as users with the same lostness may vary in efficiency.

Lower values of lostness indicate more confusion and lower values of efficiency are better.
 


We're not totally convinced this measure captures negative user experiences in all cases.  Certainly, in a shopping scenario a user might revisit a product page repeatedly while comparing it to other options -- and that's a desirable business outcome. In other applications, revisitation may be a clear indicator of confusion. 

We'll report on correlations between this measure of confusion and other measures we've been cultivating in the coming months.

Smith, P.A.: Towards a practical measure of hypertext usability. Interacting with Computers 8 (4) (1996) pp. 365-381 http://citeseer.nj.nec.com/context/898955/0
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Posted at 0:2, Published in: Web Usability