| Smartphone dictionary apps demonstrate their unique features in the Internet environment,which are obvious in the access structure.Compared with the traditional paper dictionaries,the access structure in the dictionary apps is much more intelligent and diversified.In order to better cater to the user’s consulting needs,the designers of the dictionary apps provide a variety of useful retrieval functions.Whether these retrieval functions are really used and accepted by the public is the main issue to be explored in this thesis.The current study aims to examine whether the access structure of the smartphone dictionary apps is user-friendly.As a tool which can help users have an easy and quick access to retrieve and locate the required lexicographical information,the accessibility determines the quality of the dictionary apps.The thesis will discuss the access structure in the dictionary apps.Based on the download volume Smartphone dictionary apps on the Qimai data platform,five free dictionary apps with the highest download amount were selected as the research objects: Youdao,Kingsoft,Baidu Translation,Bing and Euro.The design of the access structure under the network environment were investigated.According to the order of retrieval,this present study divides the access structure into three categories:the retrieval path from the user interface to the dictionary information interface,the retrieval path within the entry information,and the retrieval path from the information in the dictionary to the information outside the dictionary.Then,this study analyzed editor’s design intention of the access structure in the five chosen dictionary apps.It is found that there are various retrieval paths in the dictionary apps,which provide convenience for users to quickly and effectively retrieve the required lexicographical information and greatly reduces the searched-information cost.At the same time,some personalized retrieval paths are designed to meet the query needs of different users.However,there are also some shortcomings,such as insensitive photo-query,hyperlinks to unrelated videos,unobvious prompt text and incomplete semantic network.In addition,in order to further explore whether these access routes are truly userfriendly,an online questionnaire on Wenjuanxing platform was developed.The data was transferred to the SPSS statistics tool to be further analyzed to get to know the users’ real attitudes and expectations to various retrieval paths.The frequency of the first type of access structure is higher than that of the second and third categories,but the satisfaction of the second and third types is higher than that of the first type.It reflects that the second and third access structure are not obvious enough,but they enhance the efficiency in the retrieval process.A further analysis is to examine whether the second type of access structure is related the major and grade.And the results show that there is not statistical significance.It can indicate that the second type of access structure is more user-friendly than the first and third ones.At the same time,the analysis of the users’ attitudes and needs shows that users hold some negative attitudes towards the first and third type.So,a more user-friendly access environment should be established.Finally,considering the current situation of the access structure of smartphone dictionary apps and the expectation of users,this study holds that the design of the access structure of the dictionary apps should follow the principles of human-computer interaction,flexibility and hierarchy according to the concept of Lexicographical Information Cost,Functional Theory and Theory of Dictionary as Communication.At the same time,the retrieval paths should be designed based on the needs of users.The findings of the study are both beneficial to the app developers and dictionary users. |
