Systems and methods for assessing user success rates of accessing information in a collection of contents

#1. Field of Invention

#This invention relates to assessing usability of a web site. In particular, this invention relates to the measurement of user success rates of accessing information of a web site.

#2. Description of Related Art

#Various exemplary embodiments of this invention will be described in detail, with references to the following figures, wherein:

#FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing an exemplary embodiments of a system for measuring navigability of a document collection or a web site according to this invention;

#FIG. 2 is a flowchart of an exemplary embodiments of a method for measuring navigability of a web site according to this invention;

#In various exemplary embodiments of the systems and methods according to this invention, measuring the navigability of a web site is determined by the amount of “information scent” that is absorbed by simulated users “surfing” through the web site. The rate at which the simulated users absorb information scent can be viewed as a measurement of accomplishing the users' information goals. As users reach their target information, the users terminate their navigation in the web site. Thus, the rate at which users finish is a measurement of the navigability of the web site.

#FIG. 1 shows an exemplary block diagram of an exemplary embodiment of a system 100 for measuring navigability of a web site according to this invention. The system 100 includes a controller 15, a memory 20, a topology determining circuit 25, a proximal cue determining circuit 30, a word/document frequency determining circuit 35, a keyword matrix determining circuit 40, a non-zero topology element determining circuit 45, a proximal scent determining circuit 50, a normalizing circuit 55, a proximal and distal scent combining circuit 60, a spreading activation circuit 65, a scent matrix determining circuit 75, a keyword×weighted word/document determining circuit 70, a weighted word/document matrix determining circuit 80, a distal scent determining circuit 85 and an input/output circuit 10 for connecting to a communications link 110. A web server 200 provides access to a document collection or web site 300 over the communications link 110.

#The input/output circuit 10 retrieves a document or web page of a web site 300 over the communication link 110 from the web server 200 and stores the document or web page in the memory 20. This exemplary embodiment describes the use of a web server. However, it will be apparent that the system for measuring navigability a web site according to this invention may be practiced using any system or method of providing access to document collections, web sites or any other type of content portions in which links, references and/or connection between the documents, web pages or content portions are provided.