Web-sites
Structure Characteristics and Human Cognitive Functions
A. Iwahara, M. Yamada, A. Kawakami, M. Okamoto, & T. Hatta |
College
students examined the relations between Web-site design/structure
and cognitive performance. In Study l, nineteen subjects evaluated
283 Web-sites of university department and found that two axes, surface
design of two dimensional complexity and structure design of three
dimensional complexity contribute to the evaluation of Web-site impression.
In Study 2, twenty-one students joined a memory experiment to investigate
which axis contributes to the understanding and memory of Web-site.
The results suggest that the contribution of each axis depends on
the nature of contents (general and specific) and the cognitive attributes
(understanding and memory). The axis of Web-site structure contributes
to both understanding and memory for general information but the
axis of Web-site surface design contributes only to the understanding,
not to the memory function. Key words: web-site design, web-site structure, cognitive process |