Farzan, Rosta
(2009)
A STUDY OF SOCIAL NAVIGATION SUPPORT UNDER DIFFERENT SITUATIONAL AND PERSONAL FACTORS.
Doctoral Dissertation, University of Pittsburgh.
(Unpublished)
Abstract
"Social Navigation" for the Web has been created as a response to the problem of disorientation in information space. It helps by visualizing traces of behavior of other users and adding social affordance to the information space. Despite the popularity of social navigation ideas, very few studies of social navigation systems can be found in the research literature. In this dissertation, I designed and carried out an experiment to explore the effect of several factors on social navigation support (SNS). The purpose of the experiment was to identify situations under which social navigation is most useful and to investigate the effect of personal factors, e.g., interpersonal trust, and gender on the likelihood of following social navigation cues. To gain a deeper insight into the effect of SNS on users' information seeking behavior, traditional evaluation methodologies were supplemented with eye tracking. The results of the study show that social navigation cues affect subjects' search behavior; specifically, while under time pressure subjects were more likely to use SNS. SNS was successful in guiding them to relevant documents and allowed them to achieve higher search performance. Reading abilities and interpersonal trust had a reliable effect on the SNS-following behavior and on subjects' subjective opinion about SNS. The effect of the gender was less pronounced than expected, contrary to the evidence in the literature.
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Details
Item Type: |
University of Pittsburgh ETD
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Status: |
Unpublished |
Creators/Authors: |
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ETD Committee: |
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Date: |
15 June 2009 |
Date Type: |
Completion |
Defense Date: |
15 April 2009 |
Approval Date: |
15 June 2009 |
Submission Date: |
22 April 2009 |
Access Restriction: |
No restriction; Release the ETD for access worldwide immediately. |
Institution: |
University of Pittsburgh |
Schools and Programs: |
Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences > Intelligent Systems |
Degree: |
PhD - Doctor of Philosophy |
Thesis Type: |
Doctoral Dissertation |
Refereed: |
Yes |
Uncontrolled Keywords: |
eye tracking; social navigation support; user study; interpersonal trust; time constraint |
Other ID: |
http://etd.library.pitt.edu/ETD/available/etd-04222009-134348/, etd-04222009-134348 |
Date Deposited: |
10 Nov 2011 19:41 |
Last Modified: |
19 Dec 2016 14:35 |
URI: |
http://d-scholarship.pitt.edu/id/eprint/7504 |
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