Characterizing Web users' online information behavior

Abstract

Although the body of literature pertaining to the study of micro, context-specific behavior on the Web is growing, there lacks a global, macro analysis as to the behavioral dimensions of Web users' online activities. In an attempt to fill in the gap, this study proposes a three-dimensional, cubic typology for the characterization of Web users' online information behavior. We discuss a set of hypotheses concerning the relationships among these dimensions as well as those between these dimensions and related behavioral aspects. Online panel data consisting of month-long clickstreams of 2,022 Web users obtained from InsightXplore, Taiwan are made available for the empirical validation of the hypotheses. We found that a Web user's width (i.e., number of categories of Web sites explored), length (i.e., number of sites visited per category), and depth (i.e., number of pages downloaded per site) of online information behavior are highly correlated. Furthermore, these three dimensions of the behavioral "cube" are positively associated with speed of navigation, but negatively associated with the Web users' explicit online information search propensity and the degree of relatedness among the sites they visited.

How are Health Professionals Using Health Information Exchange Systems? Measuring Usage for Evaluation and System Improvement

“…The sample included 1,661 different usage patterns. To help us understand the usage variation across the user base, we applied an existing framework to classify each pattern according to: length, breadth, and information category [33]. …”

Consensus formation in science modeled by aggregated bibliographic coupling

“…Cole (1983:126) uses the Gini coefficient G which is a measure typically used to measure inequality (for recent examples within this field see, e.g. Burrell, 2008;Chiang, Huang, & Huang, 2009;Huang, Shen, Chiang, & Lin, 2007). At pure equality, G = 0, and at pure inequality, G = 1.…”

Characterizing Web users' degree of Web 2.0‐ness

“…People show heterogeneous information behavior on the Internet (Huang, Shen, Chiang, & Lin, 2007a,b), partly because they vary greatly in information literacy. Information literacy refers to people's recognition of their information needs and ability in efficiently finding and effectively utilizing the needed information (American Library Association, 1989).…”

“…As the Web represents an online “information space” (Pharo, 2004), an online “information ground” (Fisher, Naumer, Durrance, Stromski, & Christiansen, 2005; Fisher, Landry, & Naumer, 2006), or both, its users' information behavior on the Web with respect to communicating, learning, working, documenting, playing, and so on can be called their online information behavior —a term first used by Pettigrew and Durrance (2001) and later characterized by Huang, Shen, Chiang, & Lin (2007a). According to Huang et al (2007a), online information behavior is defined as “all activities that a user undertakes on the Web which result in exchanges of information” that “includes users' goal‐directed information search and their undirected browsing on the Web”(p. 1990). According to our earlier discussion, a Web user's online information behavior is influenced by his or her information literacy regarding the creation, selection, organization, and utilization of information on the Web.…”

“…Therefore, we propose to utilize clickstream data collected from online panels for the analysis of Web users' degrees of Web 2.0‐ness. Given the very nature of such cross‐site clickstream data, as Huang and colleagues (2007a, 2007b) demonstrated, the natural way to measure Web users' online information behavior is to focus on the quantifiable metrics such as behavioral volume, behavioral speed, and behavioral concentration. As a quantitative exploration of the user‐side, Web 2.0 issues have been largely neglected thus far.…”