Acta Informatica Pragensia 2020, 9(2), 108-131 | DOI: 10.18267/j.aip.1363524

Research on User Behaviors and Tolerance of Faulty Web Interactions

Veli Özcan Budak ORCID...1, Emre Akadal ORCID...2, Sevinç Gülseçen ORCID...2
1 Department of Information Technologies, Kirklareli University, Kayalı Kampüsü Merkez, Republic of Turkey
2 Informatics Department, Istanbul University, Kalenderhane Mah. 16 Mart Şehitleri Cad. No: 8 PK 34134 Vezneciler-Beyazıt-Fatih/İstanbul, Republic of Turkey

Even if we think that all the computer systems that are in operation work perfectly, the background might not be as it seems. We might face some faulty web interactions on a popular website or software as well. User behaviors are vital for developers in creating a satisfying computer system. in the aim of this study was threefold. Firstly, to determine if users’ tolerance of different kinds of faulty web interactions changes depending on the environment, and then to find how users’ behaviors differ when they encounter a faulty web interaction. Lastly, to detect how faulty web interactions shape users’ perceptions. To achieve these aims, we conducted a test on a manipulated mobile e-commerce website with 11 tasks including five faulty ones. Participants were not informed that the test includes faulty tasks. Faulty tasks consist of different kinds of web errors: Not Responding, Blank Page, Connection Timeout (HTTP-500), Not Found (HTTP-404), and Redirect (HTTP-301). The other tasks were organized as dummy tasks, and they were not examined. In the results of this study, we reached quantitative (for the collection of quantitative data, we used a Tolerance Evaluation Scale (TES) that we developed for this study) and qualitative findings. According to the quantitative findings, there is no difference between the tolerance levels of users for different environments. On the other hand, it was determined that when there is an error that includes feedback, user tolerance is affected positively. In addition to this, it can be seen that users have a low tolerance towards giving another chance to any kind of website which has a faulty interaction. In terms of qualitative findings, participants emphasized that it does not matter what purpose a website serves, the errors give an amateur impression by damaging usability and professionalism.

Keywords: User behavior, User tolerance, Faulty interaction, Mobile web, Human-computer interaction, Usability.

Received: July 23, 2020; Revised: August 24, 2020; Accepted: August 31, 2020; Prepublished online: August 31, 2020; Published: December 31, 2020  Show citation

ACS AIP APA ASA Harvard Chicago Chicago Notes IEEE ISO690 MLA NLM Turabian Vancouver
Özcan Budak, V., Akadal, E., & Gülseçen, S. (2020). Research on User Behaviors and Tolerance of Faulty Web Interactions. Acta Informatica Pragensia, 9(2), 108-131. doi: 10.18267/j.aip.136
Download citation
  • BibTeX (.bib)
  • Bookends (.ris)
  • EasyBib (.ris)
  • EndNote (.enw)
  • EndNote 8 (.xml)
  • ISI WoS (.isi)
  • Medlars (.medlars)
  • Mendeley (.ris)
  • MODS (.xml)
  • Papers (.ris)
  • RefWorks (.txt)
  • RefManager (.ris)
  • RIS (.ris)
  • MS Word (.xml)
  • Zotero (.ris)
    • Open full article

    References

    1. Avizienis, A. (1978). Fault-tolerance: The survival attribute of digital systems. Proceedings of the IEEE, 66(10), 1109-1125. https://doi.org/10.1109/PROC.1978.11107 Go to original source...
    2. Begosso, L. C., & Filgueiras, L. V. L. (2006). Human error simulation as an aid to HCI design for critical systems. In Proceedings of VII Brazilian Symposium on Human Factors in Computing Systems, (pp. 120-127). ACM. https://doi.org/10.1145/1298023.1298040 Go to original source...
    3. Card, D. N. (1998). Learning from our mistakes with defect causal analysis. IEEE Software, 15(1), 56-63. https://doi.org/10.1109/52.646883 Go to original source...
    4. Everard, A., & Galletta, D. F. (2005). How Presentation Flaws Affect Perceived Site Quality, Trust, and Intention to Purchase from an Online Store. Journal of Management Information Systems, 22(3), 56-95. https://doi.org/10.2753/MIS0742-1222220303 Go to original source...
    5. Galletta, D. F., Henry, R., McCoy, S., & Polak, P. (2004). Web Site Delays: How Tolerant are Users?. Journal of the Association for Information Systems, 5(1), Article 1. https://doi.org/10.17705/1jais.00044 Go to original source...
    6. Graham, I. (2003). A Pattern Language for Web Usability. Pearson Education. Go to original source...
    7. Guse, D., Schuck, S., Hohlfeld, O., Raake, A., & Möller, S. (2015). Subjective quality of webpage loading: The impact of delayed and missing elements on quality ratings and task completion time. In 2015 Seventh International Workshop on Quality of Multimedia Experience (QoMEX), (pp. 1-6). IEEE. https://doi.org/10.1109/QoMEX.2015.7148094 Go to original source...
    8. Heckel, R., & Mariani, L. (2005). Automatic Conformance Testing of Web Services. In M. Cerioli (Ed.), Fundamental Approaches to Software Engineering (pp. 34-48). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-31984-9_4 Go to original source...
    9. ISO. (1998). Ergonomics of human-system interaction. (9241-11). Geneva: International Organization for Standardization.
    10. Laprie, J.-C. (1995). Dependable Computing and Fault Tolerance: Concepts and Terminology. In Twenty-Fifth International Symposium on Fault-Tolerant Computing, 1995, ' Highlights from Twenty-Five Years', (pp. 2-11). IEEE. https://doi.org/10.1109/FTCSH.1995.532603 Go to original source...
    11. Lazar, J., Meiselwitz, G., & Norcio, A. (2004). A taxonomy of novice user perception of error on the Web. Universal Access in the Information Society, 3(3), 202-208. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10209-004-0095-9 Go to original source...
    12. Ma, L., & Tian, J. (2007). Web error classification and analysis for reliability improvement. Journal of Systems and Software, 80(6), 795-804. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jss.2006.10.017 Go to original source...
    13. Mahajan, S., Li, B., Behnamghader, P., & Halfond, W. G. J. (2016). Using Visual Symptoms for Debugging Presentation Failures in Web Applications. In 2016 IEEE International Conference on Software Testing, Verification and Validation (ICST), (pp. 191-201). IEEE. https://doi.org/10.1109/ICST.2016.35 Go to original source...
    14. Meyers, S. (2004). The most important design guideline? [User interfaces]. IEEE Software, 21(4), 14-16. https://doi.org/10.1109/MS.2004.29 Go to original source...
    15. Munson, J. C., Nikora, A. P., & Sherif, J. S. (2006). Software faults: A quantifiable definition. Advances in Engineering Software, 37(5), 327-333. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.advengsoft.2005.07.003 Go to original source...
    16. Nah, F. F.-H. (2004). A study on tolerable waiting time: How long are Web users willing to wait? Behaviour & Information Technology, 23(3), 153-163. https://doi.org/10.1080/01449290410001669914 Go to original source...
    17. Nielsen, J. (1993). Usability Engineering. Morgan Kaufmann.
    18. Norman, D. (2013). The Design of Everyday Things: Revised and Expanded Edition. Basic Books.
    19. Ocariza, F., Bajaj, K., Pattabiraman, K., & Mesbah, A. (2013). An Empirical Study of Client-Side JavaScript Bugs. In 2013 ACM / IEEE International Symposium on Empirical Software Engineering and Measurement, (pp. 55-64). IEEE. https://doi.org/10.1109/ESEM.2013.18 Go to original source...
    20. Phalgune, A., Kissinger, C., Burnett, M., Cook, C., Beckwith, L., & Ruthruff, J. R. (2005). Garbage in, garbage out? An empirical look at oracle mistakes by end-user programmers. In 2005 IEEE Symposium on Visual Languages and Human-Centric Computing (VL/HCC'05), (pp. 45-52). IEEE. https://doi.org/10.1109/VLHCC.2005.40 Go to original source...
    21. Ploski, J., Rohr, M., Schwenkenberg, P., & Hasselbring, W. (2007). Research issues in software fault categorization. ACM SIGSOFT Software Engineering Notes, 32(6), 6-es. https://doi.org/10.1145/1317471.1317478 Go to original source...
    22. Ramsay, J., Barbesi, A., & Preece, J. (1998). A psychological investigation of long retrieval times on the World Wide Web. Interacting with Computers, 10(1), 77-86. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0953-5438(97)00019-2 Go to original source...
    23. Rubin, J., Chisnell, D., & Spool, J. (2008). Handbook of Usability Testing: How to Plan, Design, and Conduct Effective Tests. Wiley.
    24. Shneiderman, B., & Plaisant, C. (2004). Designing the User Interface: Strategies for Effective Human-Computer Interaction. Addison Wesley.
    25. Tan, Z., Zhu, J., Chen, J., & Li, F. (2019). The Effects of Response Time on User Perception in Smartphone Interaction. In T. Z. Ahram & C. Falcão (Eds.), Advances in Usability, User Experience and Assistive Technology (pp. 342-353). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-94947-5_34 Go to original source...
    26. Tzeng, J.-Y. (2004). Toward a more civilized design: Studying the effects of computers that apologize. International Journal of Human-Computer Studies, 61(3), 319-345. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijhcs.2004.01.002 Go to original source...

    This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0), which permits use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original publication is properly cited. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.


    Return to the content