The Impact of Experience, Gender and Task Complexity on the Disorientation Level of Graduate Students at Shiraz University in Browsing

Document Type : Research َ Article

Authors

1 MA of Knowledge and Information Science, Shiraz University

2 Assistant Professor, Knowledge and Information Science, Shiraz University

Abstract

Purpose: investigating the impact of experience, gender and complexity of task on predicting the disorientation  of graduate students at Shiraz University in browsing.
Methodology: This is an applied research with comparative approach. In order to collect data related to the users’ disorientation, the participants’ transaction log files in interaction with the website were recorded using the Camtasia Screen Recording Software, version8. User’ Experience and gender were collected using questionnaire. The population included all undergraduate students in Shiraz University and the sample consisted of 100 voluntary undergraduate students.
Findings:  the complexity level of the task (simple or complex) alone has no significant effect on the level of users' disorientation. However, the interaction of the task complexity and the gender has a significant effect on users’ lost level; in both simple and complex tasks, the female users experienced disorientation more than males did. Moreover, with the increase in the complexity level of tasks, male users experienced more loss than female users. Moreover the interaction of the task complexity and the experience has no significant effect on users’ lost level. Finally the interaction of the task complexity, the experience and the gender has no significant impact on users’ lost level.
Conclusion: Due to the limited understanding of the role of task complexity, gender and experience on disorientation of the users during web browsing, the results of the present study appeared to be useful in better understanding of the factors influencing the users’ disorientation in browsing process and thereby the need to consider them in users modeling and training.

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Main Subjects

References

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  • Receive Date: 02 September 2018
  • Revise Date: 27 December 2018
  • Accept Date: 22 January 2019

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