Analysis of Web-Based Communication Systems Usage Patterns: A Visual Application

• Author(s): Florin Zamfir ; José Nunes ; Leonor Teixeira ; Óscar Mealha ; Beatriz Sousa Santos
• Date: 2012
• Origin: Electrónica e Telecomunicações
• Subject(s): communication systems; user interface; human visual system; communication systems; user interface; human visual system
• Document Type: Article
• Language: English

Description

In worldwide institutions, internal web sites have been developed in conformance with internal communicationstrategies. Efficient analysis and diagnosis tools must bedesigned to cope with those constantly growing sophisticatedinfrastructures, allowing the identification of problems at thehuman-computer communication level.In this paper, we introduce an application meant to help usability specialists to organize the informational space of an institutional web site. This application is able to capture, compile and analyze the information related to the structure of the web site and the usage patterns. We explore the enormous capacities of the human visual system presenting that information through different visualization methods. We briefly present the functionality we have identified as central to the application, an overview of the architecture, the main conceptual model of the user interface and the visualization strategies used. In worldwide institutions, internal web sites have beendeveloped in conformance with internal communicationstrategies. Efficient analysis and diagnosis tools must bedesigned to cope with those constantly growing sophisticatedinfrastructures, allowing the identification of problems at thehuman-computer communication level.In this paper, we introduce an application meant to helpusability specialists to organize the informational space of aninstitutional web site. This application is able to capture,compile and analyze the information related to the structureof the web site and the usage patterns. We explore theenormous capacities of the human visual system presentingthat information through different visualization methods.We briefly present the functionality we have identified ascentral to the application, an overview of the architecture,the main conceptual model conceptual model of the userinterface and the visualization strategies used.