Investigating the Effect of Hyperlink Information Scent on Users' Interaction with a Web Site

In the study presented in this paper we investigate how variations of information scent of hyperlinks of a webpage influence users’ behavior in terms of attention-focusing, confidence, effectiveness and efficiency, while exploring a website. In the reported study, 19 participants completed eight different tasks associated with eight simplified websites. Analysis of the results showed that even small differences in the target-link’s information scent can substantially affect users’ performance, distribution of attention and confidence. The study contributes to the related literature by quantifying the impact of even small differences in the target-link’s scent on users’ success ratio, time for first click, confidence and distribution of attention. In addition, a scent threshold value was identified, below which all the measured variables were substantially affected, and thus the link could be characterized as of “weak scent”.