PageLinker, integrating contextual bookmarks into a browser

Demo Web page Revisitation Participatory Design of PageLinker in situ Evaluation Questions

PagelinkerIntegrating contextual bookmarks into a browser

A.Tabard, W.Mackay, N.Roussel, C.Letondal

InSitu,INRIA & LRI, Institut Pasteur

May 1, 2007

A.Tabard, W.Mackay, N.Roussel, C.Letondal: Pagelinker, Integrating contextual bookmarks into a browser 1/21


PageLinker videos

Looking for:

Paper format Hotels Proteins



Presentation Overview

I Web page revisitation

I Participatory Design with biologists

I Contextual Bookmarks

I Evaluation



Revisitation and biologists

I Heavy web users

I Go from on website to anotherto analyse data

I Use a lot of online forms, andcopy/paste to transfer data

I Bookmarks and history helpfulbut not enough



Purpose

Contextual bookmarks

are bookmarks/favorites specific to a page or set of pages.

I Associate web pages together

I Help users chain web pages

I Improve web page revisitation

I Contextualise web navigation



Purpose

Contextual bookmarks

are bookmarks/favorites specific to a page or set of pages.

I Associate web pages together

I Help users chain web pages

I Improve web page revisitation

I Contextualise web navigation



Web page revisitation tools

Literature

I from 46% to 81% ofpages are revisited[Weinreich & al 2006], [Cockburn & al 1999]

I WebView, [Cockburn & al 1999]

I Padprints, [Hightower & al 1998]



Web page revisitation tools

Everyday browsers:

I History

I Bookmarks

I URL drop down menu

I Search Engines



Preliminary Study of Biologists

20 biologists / bio-informaticians interviewed

I Strong habits:smooth integration in their workflow

I Exploratory navigation:interaction

I Redundancy:need to manage different versions of the same data

I Data flows:copy/paste to chain steps



PageLinker Participatory Design

Supporting biologists’ process of analysing web-based data byassociating related web pages.

I 4 iterations in aparticipatory design process

I links automatically createdthrough copy/paste events

I co-adaptationshown manual linking

I Contextual Bookmarks



Evaluation Field Expertiment

I limited time-series, field experiment

I within-subjects design, with one factor

I 4 iterations, once a week during one month

1. Firefox,2. Firefox + PageLinker,3. Firefox,4. Firefox + PageLinker.

I at users’ (12) workplace, on their own browser

I 15 minutes scenario, illustrating everyday web navigation



Evaluation Scenario

15 minutes scenario,illustrating everyday web navigation

I 1: Database search(NCBI)

I 2,3: Parallel exploration(Genemark, Genescan)

I 4: Comparison(bl2seq)

I 5: Analysis and visual scan(Blast)



Results - time

task completion time was 28% shorter (p < 0.01)



Results - clicks

22% fewer clicks occurred (p < 0.01)



Results - page loads

38% fewer pages loaded (p < 0.01)



Results

Some explanations

I fewer intermediate pages visited

I fewer searches

I more accurate positioning

I greater understanding



Conclusion

I Personal web of relevant pages

I Contextual bookmarks improve revisitation

I Keep users in control

I 3-month follow-up: 2/3 were still using it



Authors

InSitu lab: http://insitu.lri.fr/download: http://rabidfox.mozdev.orgA.Tabard: http://www.lri.fr/∼tabard


http://insitu.lri.fr/

http://rabidfox.mozdev.org

http://www.lri.fr/~tabard


RDF datastructure



Workshop



Navtracer: Firefox event logger

I Improve the very limited browsers’ history

I Need for detailed interaction log

I Generated by the system through a Firefox extension

I Know what you are interested in


PageLinker, integrating contextual bookmarks into a browser

Technology