 Internet
Behaviours - what does the Internet look like?
by Sue Peters
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Sue manages
Teleconomy's research programmes while implementing
commercial and academic frameworks to interpret
the data, establishing and maintaining academic
links, producing commercial and academic papers
and representing Teleconomy at international conferences
and seminars.
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If you think about it, a web page is like a blank piece
of paper. The screen through which we look at a web
page is about 32 by 25cm. Over the last couple of years
websites have evolved and there are many commonalities
between them. Customers expect a contact us section
and an ‘about us’ section, and have certain
expectations according to what type of website we are
accessing: retail sites have a place to buy goods and
services, games sites have a place to interact and so
on.
But research conducted by Teleconomy asked 2 different
groups of experienced users and 2 different groups of
novice internet users to visually depict what they thought
the internet was. Between the likeminded groups there
are overwhelming similarities, but the research has
highlighted fundamental differences between experienced
Internet users and novice Internet users. Our level
of Internet experience clearly influences our understanding
of what the Internet is.
| Novice users |
Experienced users |
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Novice users tend to think of the Internet as a linear,
ordered experience as they move from the particular
to the global. In reality, the novice users are quickly
disoriented and confused, as the Internet is not a linear
experience. Novices tend to have poor navigation capabilities.
Interestingly, they blame themselves if they think they
encounter problems.
Experienced Internet users, on the other hand, are
more realistic in their depiction of the Internet, showing
more of a chaotic and fragmented experience. In reality,
these experienced users tend to use URLS to try and
cut through the information overload and provide a more
direct experience.
So what does this mean for the design of a website?
I presented a paper at the Research Show in October
suggesting that we should think more about the level
of internet experience a user has before designing journeys
through websites. Take this one step further, and we
could even start to segment web pages by experience
so that a beginner user has a different experience from
a regular user. Experienced users desire a more direct
experience whereas a novice may need to be told about
security and shown the purchase process online.
This may sound like a technical nightmare, but some
highly successful websites are already doing this. Take
Amazon, for example. Its one click service provides
less hand-holding than a novice would need by automatically
attaching repeat visitors’ address and credit
card details to orders which cuts out a number of web
pages. First-time users, on the other hand, are immediately
offered a step-by-step guide to ordering or an exhaustive
list of topics at the online help desk.
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