 Browsing the underdeveloped Web: An experiment on the Arabic Medical Web DirectoryWingyan Chung and Hsinchun Chen Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, 2009, vol. 60, issue 3, 595-607 Abstract: While the Web has grown significantly in recent years, some portions of the Web remain largely underdeveloped, as shown in a lack of high‐quality content and functionality. An example is the Arabic Web, in which a lack of well‐structured Web directories limits users' ability to browse for Arabic resources. In this research, we proposed an approach to building Web directories for the underdeveloped Web and developed a proof‐of‐concept prototype called the Arabic Medical Web Directory (AMedDir) that supports browsing of over 5,000 Arabic medical Web sites and pages organized in a hierarchical structure. We conducted an experiment involving Arab participants and found that the AMedDir significantly outperformed two benchmark Arabic Web directories in terms of browsing effectiveness, efficiency, information quality, and user satisfaction. Participants expressed strong preference for the AMedDir and provided many positive comments. This research thus contributes to developing a useful Web directory for organizing the information in the Arabic medical domain and to a better understanding of how to support browsing on the underdeveloped Web. Date: 2009 Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:bla:jamist:v:60:y:2009:i:3:p:595-607 Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from Access Statistics for this article More articles in Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology from Association for Information Science & Technology |
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