Analysis of web-based communication systems usage patterns: a visual application

Florin Zamfir; José Nunes; Leonor Teixeira; Óscar Mealha; Beatriz Sousa Santos

Florin Zamfir
José Nunes Dep. of Communication and Art, University of Aveiro
Leonor Teixeira Dep. of Economics, Management and Industrial Engineering, University of Aveiro
Óscar Mealha Dep. of Communication and Art, University of Aveiro
Beatriz Sousa Santos

Keywords: Communication systems, User interface, Human visual system

Abstract

In worldwide institutions, internal web sites have been developed in conformance with internal communication strategies. Efficient analysis and diagnosis tools must be designed to cope with those constantly growing sophisticated infrastructures, allowing the identification of problems at the human-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 conceptual model of the user interface and the visualization strategies used.