| Tracking Multimodal Interaction with New Media (2004) | |||||||||||||
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| From a cognitive perspective, this paper summarises a number of theoretical and applied studies conducted by my colleagues and myself on the topic 'interaction with new media'. The focus lies on the users' behavior: visual information gathering, interaction with the multimodal interface, browsing strategies and attentional processes during hypertext navigation. In addition, we also look at users' expectations and attitudes towards the medium. There are several methods that can be used in order to describe user behaviour and postulate a number of underlying cognitive mechanisms (Holsanova 2004). In the following, I will show how eye-tracking data supplemented by simultaneous or retrospective verbal protocols, keystroke logging, and interviews can help us to investigate users' behavior, the rationality behind this behaviour, and users' attitudes and expectations. User behavior on the Internet The first study conducted 1996 by David de Lon and myself was a qualitative study of user behaviour on the World-Wide Web concerning hypertext navigation and browsing strategies. Eight participants were filmed whilst performing user-defined tasks and then asked to review the video-taped session during prompted recall. This data formed the basis for a series of descriptions of user behaviour and the postulation of a number of underlying cognitive mechanisms. Our results indicate that users lack ready made search strategies, prefer alternatives that are visible, immediately available and familiar, choose the path of least resistance, exhibit social forms of behaviour, engage in parallel activities, object to misleadingly presented information, have trouble orienting, are late in using appropriate strategies, are sensitive to matters of time, and are emotionally involved in the activity... | |||||||||||||
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