Research on User Behaviours and Tolerance of Faulty Web Interactions


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Budak V. Ö., Akadal E., Gülseçen S.

Acta Informatica Pragensia, cilt.9, sa.2, ss.108-131, 2020 (Scopus)

  • Yayın Türü: Makale / Tam Makale
  • Cilt numarası: 9 Sayı: 2
  • Basım Tarihi: 2020
  • Doi Numarası: 10.18267/j.aip.136
  • Dergi Adı: Acta Informatica Pragensia
  • Derginin Tarandığı İndeksler: Scopus
  • Sayfa Sayıları: ss.108-131
  • İstanbul Üniversitesi Adresli: Evet

Özet

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.