Research And Application On 2D Visualization Based Web Usability Analysis

With the rapid development of the Internet technology, the usability of the site, which is the information gateway of governments, enterprises or organizations, has aroused interests and attention of many people. The focused research topics are concentrated on: Can the interface design of the site and the functions supplied satisfy the need of users? Will users meet difficulties when using? Which are users' usual reading behaviors when they are surfing the site? As a developer or maintenance staff, or usability professional, how to find thesis issues and by what means? By the work of this thesis, we can primarily answer above questions in some extent.We investigated methodology and techniques for analyzing web usability issues, then we exert server-log analysis method for acquire visitors surfing behaviors, and make use of the human's advantage in visual cognitive, we adopted the Hyperbolic tree's 2-D visualization technique together with traditional visualization statistics table. Using these techniques, we then designed and developed SUAT (Site Usability Analysis Tool), to aid developers, maintenance staff, or usability professional analyzing and finding web usability issues.Subsequently, we mainly tried on using SUAT to tentatively conduct case study taking the site of the Internet Center of Dalian Maritime University as an example. Based on 7 cases study, we verified the effectiveness of using 2-D visualization technique study web usability. And in the process, we improved and perfected the function of SUAT. At last, we sum up the analysis methods and steps to conduct site usability analysis using SUAT.