Information retrieval using a hypertext-based help system

Abstract

Hypertext offers users a simple, flexible way to navigate through electronic information systems but at the potential risk of becoming lost in the network of interconnected pieces of information. A study was conducted on information retrieval using a commercial hypertext-based help system. It was found that the predominant search strategy was "browsing" (characterized by scanning tables of contents and paging through topics), rather than employing the indexes ("analytical search"). Although subjects did not get lost, individuals with better spatial visualization skills, as measured by a standardized test, were faster at retrieving information and returned to the top of the information hierarchy less often than those with poorer spatial visualization skills. These results support previous studies that have found a strong preference by users for browsing in hypertext systems and extend those findings to a new domain (help), a different type of user interface, and a different information architecture. In addition, the results demonstrate the importance of spatial visualization ability for efficient navigation and information retrieval in a hierarchical hypertext system.

Learning and navigating in hypertext: Navigational support by hierarchical menu or tag cloud?

“…As navigation tasks require participants to move throughout cyberspace, spatial ability might be an important factor in determining success and/or difficulty of HLE navigation. In line with this argumentation, some research has shown a link between spatial ability and HLE navigation (Campagnoni & Ehrlich, 1989;Juvina & Oostendorp, 2006;Stanney & Salvendy, 1995). These studies showed that high spatial ability is connected to better and faster task performance on information retrieval tasks.…”

Bridging the Gap: The Use of Pathfinder Networks in Visual Navigation

“…Empirical studies also suggested that a good structural visualisation is particularly useful to people with lower visualisation ability. In the study by Campagnoni and Ehrlich [29], users with lower visualisation ability used the top-level table of contents more frequently than users with good visualisation ability. A natural starting point is to apply similar experimental designs to the study of the relationships between users' spatial ability and the structural visualisation in virtual worlds.…”

“…A number of empirical studies in hypertext systems focused on spatial ability and cognitive style, in particular, interaction between cognitive styles and structural maps in hypertext [29] and a spatial world [8]. Previous studies in hypertext suggested that spatial ability is a significant factor that affects users' satisfaction and performance with hypertext systems (see Chen and Rada [28]) for a meta-analytical summary).…”

Integrating spatial, semantic, and social structures for knowledge management

“…A number of empirical studies in hypertext systems focused on spatial ability and cognitive style [2]. The interrelationship between individual users' spatial ability and the spatial-semantic user interface generated with similar techniques was explored in a recent empirical study [5].…”