The World Wide Web is a place where people can shop, read articles, search for information of all kinds. Like other activities that are carried out by people offline, browsing the Web involves very complex cognitive processes. According to the Cognitive Load Theory, the human cognitive capacity is limited to processing a few pieces of information at a given time, because the cognitive resources available during the execution of a task are limited too. Many authors have pointed out that browsing the Web generally implies a high cognitive load. Interestingly, recent research studies have shown that it is possible to decrease the cognitive load during Web browsing by following specific Web design rule sets and guidelines. Despite this knowledge and the potential relevance of the topic, at the best of our knowledge no study has yet investigated how specific task have an impact in terms of cognitive load and user experience. There is also a lack of knowledge on how web design techniques can actually reduce cognitive load. On the basis of these observations, the proposed study has two main objectives: (1) to investigate the user experience while performing comprehension task on the Web through the adoption of a real-time multi-level assessment, with particular attention on cognitive load; (2) to test the relationship between specific aspects of web design and users experience. The experimental design and protocol of the study will be presented and discussed.
The Web has become a commonly used media to convey the information. In addition to conveying the information, a website is also used as an application and even become an information system. At the beginning of the trend of mobile device usage that can access the internet, the companies or information service providers use two different platforms in providing information services and applications on the internet, i.e. desktop and mobile. Initially, website owners provide several website versions to make website’s User Interface (UI) comply with different devices or different browser's screen resolutions. They usually create two versions of their websites which is the main one is targeting for desktop users and the other one is for mobile users.
Different browser’s resolution size between different devices, especially mobile devices, can lead to a design problem. The problem may occur when a web page is being accessed through a browser which its viewport is below the expected minimum width . This condition may cause critical links, components, as well as some other important information, which should have been presented to users, are being hidden. The needs to do vertical or horizontal scrolling will decrease the deliverable effect of certain values from the website. Moreover, it can reduce the overall website experience for their users.
The UCD approach focuses on systems development being driven by the user’s requirements instead of technical requirements. Design should depend on measures of how well the product has been used by highlighting user’s interaction and by making use of an iterative prototyping development process. When the methodology is applied to the user as the center of application; the users must be identified and analyzed by the user modeling. A user model has to be an integral part of any interactive system. A user model is different from both the actual knowledge possessed by a user and knowledge employed by system designers .
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