Definition of Knowledge Worker

This research looks specifically at Knowledge Workers and how they use information web sites.

Definition of Knowledge worker as taken from wikipedia;

Knowledge worker (also referred to as as intellectual worker or brain worker) is someone who is employed due to his or her knowledge of a subject matter, rather than their ability to perform manual labor. It includes those in the information technology fields, such as computer programmers, systems analysts, technical writers and so forth. The term can also refer to people outside of information technology but who are hired for their knowledge of some subject, such as lawyers, teachers, and scientists.
from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knowledge_worker

Static Menu Deisgn

Below links are for articles on CSS methods that can be used to create static (non scrolling) menu designs on websites.

http://www.w3.org/Style/Examples/007/menus

Cognition and Language Laboratory

The CLL conducts experiments via the Web.

Paper on recruitment of participants and archiving of Internet-based experiments

The Web Experiment List:
A Web service for the recruitment of participants
and archiving of Internet-based experiments

Interesting Wikipedia pages

The below pages from wikipedia, i came across these whilst looking into online research methods

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_Ethnography
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Online_research_method
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web-based_experiments

Log Analyser Software

Deep Log Analyzer version 3.5

Web analytics and website statistics software.


I will be using this tool to perform log analysis. A custom report will be used to extract user data based on IP address and follow there navigation paths to provide a time snapshot of each page/node visited.

http://www.deep-software.com/morereports.asp?ref=dla

Determining Usability Test Sample Size

Determining Usability Test Sample Size
Carl W. Turner*, James R. Lewis†, and Jakob Nielsen

A papper which discuses the factors involved in determining usability test sample sizes

Evaluation of Procedures for Adjusting Problem-Discovery Rates Estimated From Small Samples

Research paper written by James R. Lewis "IBM Corporation".

Abstract talen from the paper;

There are 2 excellent reasons to compute usability problem-discovery rates. First, an estimate of the problem-discovery rate is a key component for projecting the required sample size for a usability study. Second, practitioners can use this estimate to calculate the proportion of discovered problems for a given sample size. Unfortunately, smallsample estimates of the problem-discovery rate suffer from a serious overestimation bias.

Usability Sampling Tool

Searching on the web the other day i came across this website which houses a variety of sampling calculators. The metrics used in these calculators come from reserach performed by notable experts. I am curerntly looking into using this tool for selecting the correct usablity sample to use in navigation reserach.

Some notable references for the interface usability calculator are;

Lewis, James (2001) "Evaluation of Procedures for Adjusting Problm-Discovery Rates Estimated from Small Samples" in The International Journal of Human-Computer Interaction 13(4) p. 445-479

Turner, C. W., Lewis, J. R., and Nielsen, J. (2006). Determining usability test sample size. In W. Karwowski (Ed.), International Encyclopedia of Ergonomics and Human Factors (pp. 3084-3088). Boca Raton, FL: CRC Press.