A web site navigation engine

Often users navigating (or “surfing”) through a web site “get lost in hyperspace”, when they lose the context in which they are browsing, and are unsure how to proceed in terms of satisfying their original goal. The unresolved problem in web site usability, of assisting users in finding their way, is termed the navigation problem. (See [LL00] for a survey and critique on the navigation problem.) This problem is becoming even more acute with the continuing growth of web sites in terms of their structure, which is becoming more complex, and the vast amount information they intend to deliver. In contrast users are not willing to invest time to learn this structure and expect the delivery of the relevant content without delay. To tackle this problem we are developing a navigation system for semi-automating user navigation which builds trails of information, i.e. sequences of linked pages, which are relevant to the user query. The preferred trails are presented to the user in a tree-like structure which they can interact with. This is in sharp contrast to a search engine which merely outputs a list of pages which are relevant to the user query without addressing the problem of which trail the user should follow. We discuss the architecture of the navigation system and give a brief description of the navigation engine and user interface