An Examination of User Behaviour during Web Information Tasks

Since the inception of electronic environments, researchers have been interested in how to provide better support for the tasks people perform in these environments. While several studies have examined behaviours such as revisitation and navigation on the Web, there has been little study of these behaviours in the context of task. There is, therefore, still a lack of understanding of the types of tasks people engage in on the Web and how people interact with their web browsers to complete these tasks. One of the main reasons for this lack of research is that studying natural user behaviour on the Web is challenging, from both the perspective of study design and data collection. In this talk, I will present an overview of my dissertation research in which I conducted a series of three successive studies to better understand user behaviour within the web browser in the context of task. Through a field study, a set of semi-structured interviews, and a laboratory study, I examined the high level tasks in which users engage in on the Web as well as the role of monitoring within these tasks. The findings from these studies provide new understanding of the types of tasks users engage in on the Web, how users interact with their web browser to complete these tasks, and how web browsers might better support users during these tasks. Throughout this talk, I will also discuss many of the methodological challenges encountered during this work.