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Using access information in the dynamic visualisation of web sites

Includes bibliographical references.

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Wong, Bryan
Other Authors: Marsden, Gary
Format: Thesis
Language:English
Published: Department of Computer Science 2014
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access_status_str Open Access
author Wong, Bryan
author2 Marsden, Gary
author_browse Marsden, Gary
Wong, Bryan
author_facet Marsden, Gary
Wong, Bryan
author_sort Wong, Bryan
collection Thesis
description Includes bibliographical references.
format Thesis
id oai:open.uct.ac.za:11427/6365
institution University of Cape Town (South Africa)
language eng
last_indexed 2026-06-10T12:34:00.978Z
license_str Not specified — see source repository
provenance_str_mv Harvested via OAI-PMH from UCTD — University of Cape Town Open Access Repository
publishDate 2014
publishDateRange 2014
publishDateSort 2014
publisher Department of Computer Science
publisherStr Department of Computer Science
record_format dspace
source_str UCTD — University of Cape Town Open Access Repository
spelling oai:open.uct.ac.za:11427/6365 Using access information in the dynamic visualisation of web sites Wong, Bryan Marsden, Gary Computer Science Includes bibliographical references. Log file analysis provides a cost-effective means to detennine web site usage. However, current methods of displaying log analysis results tend to be limited in that they either contain no reference to a web site's structure, or else they portray this structure as a standard graph or tree. This dissertation presents a visual representation of web server log information, which addresses these limitations by incorporating log file data into a visualisation of a web site's layout. The devised visualisation utilizes properties unique to web sites in order to create a compromise between the clutter-prone network graph and the infonnation incomplete tree representations that have traditionally been used to depict web sites. As such, the visualisation emphasises typical web site features such as the home page, sub-sites and navigation bars. This approach pennitted the introduction of the concept of implying the presence of links without explicitly rendering them. This notion has many implications, not least of which is the reduction of cluttering. The visualisation combined several other techniques to address the issues of structure and data representation, data exploration, scalability and context maintenance. Assessment of the visualisation consisted of a heuristic evaluation by an expert from the web site usage industry, a test to detelmine the intuitiveness of the representation, and a series of user experiments. Results of the assessment were generally promising although a few areas of concern, such as the difficulty experienced by users in navigating the visualisation with a trackball, were identified. These issues should not prove to be too difficult to overcome however. The visualisation could thus be said to have successfully met the aim of developing a representation of web site usage infonnation that incorporates site structure and treats web sites as unique entities, thereby taking advantage of their particular characteristics. It is hoped such a visualisation will be of benefit to web site designers and administrators in analysing and ultimately improving their web sites. 2014-08-13T19:24:30Z 2014-08-13T19:24:30Z 2004 Master Thesis Masters MSc http://hdl.handle.net/11427/6365 eng application/pdf Department of Computer Science Faculty of Science University of Cape Town
spellingShingle Computer Science
Wong, Bryan
Using access information in the dynamic visualisation of web sites
thesis_degree_str Master's
title Using access information in the dynamic visualisation of web sites
title_full Using access information in the dynamic visualisation of web sites
title_fullStr Using access information in the dynamic visualisation of web sites
title_full_unstemmed Using access information in the dynamic visualisation of web sites
title_short Using access information in the dynamic visualisation of web sites
title_sort using access information in the dynamic visualisation of web sites
topic Computer Science
url http://hdl.handle.net/11427/6365
work_keys_str_mv AT wongbryan usingaccessinformationinthedynamicvisualisationofwebsites