Abstract
The increasing popularity of the World Wide Web (WWW) has created a new market: Web access through television. One of the approaches for accessing the Web through television is the utilization of the existing cable system. Some unique characteristics of this browsing system are fast access to the Web, the use of nine buttons on a universal remote control, and a tree structure for navigating to Web sites.
This study investigated potential user interface designs for this WWW browser and evaluated the usability of the nine-button interface. Sixteen volunteers navigated to 42 predetermined Web sites with two interface formats, five system lag times, and three feedback styles. Participants were prescreened for their experience with using computers and browsing the Web. The number of errors committed and task completion times were recorded. In addition, participants were asked to subjectively rate the WWW browser interface after each task as well as after the entire experiment.
Participants preferred the 0.2 second system lag and the active feedback style. Overall, they committed fewer errors and took less time to complete the tasks with the tabbing interface than with the one-to-one mapping interface. Experienced participants committed more errors than did the inexperienced ones. Increasing system lag time was determined to have a greater adverse effect on the tabbing interface than on the one-to-one mapping interface.
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