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How the structure of Wikipedia articles influences user navigation
Daniel Lamprecht1, Kristina Lerman2, Denis Helic1
1Knowledge Technologies Institute, Graz University of Technology, Graz, Austria.
The New Review of Hypermedia and Multimedia
|July 4, 2017
Summary
Users navigate Wikipedia by favoring links near the top of articles, influenced by article structure. This indicates that well-organized information networks enhance user navigation efficiency.
Area of Science:
- Information Science
- Human-Computer Interaction
- Network Science
Background:
- Wikipedia's vast information network presents unique navigation challenges.
- Understanding user navigation patterns is crucial for optimizing information access.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate user navigation behavior in Wikipedia's information network.
- To analyze how article structure and link placement influence navigation choices.
- To evaluate models predicting link selection during information retrieval.
Main Methods:
- Analysis of all clicks within English Wikipedia over one month (free-form navigation).
- Study of wikigames to analyze goal-directed Wikipedia navigation.
- Evaluation of link selection models considering article structure, link position, and topic generality.
Main Results:
- Free-form navigation is best modeled by a bias towards article structure, particularly links in the lead section.
- Goal-directed navigation shows initial "zoom-out" (generality) and later "homing-in" (similarity) phases.
- Article structure consistently explains navigation paths, with a preference for links near the top.
Conclusions:
- Article structure, especially link placement in the lead section, significantly impacts Wikipedia navigation.
- Well-organized information, with general concepts linked early, facilitates efficient navigation.
- Optimizing information architecture can improve the navigability of large-scale information networks.
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