HistoryLane : Web Browser History Visualization Method

Sammanfattning: With the evolution of Internet, users exploit it increasingly intensively for achieving their goals: sending emails, playing games, watching videos, reading news. They do it through Web browsers, that may vary in exact implementation, but have similar core functionalities . One of these core functionalities is the access to a browsing history. However, as browsing patterns are getting more complex, the traditional history tools become insufficient. Visualization of browsing history might be helpful in that case. In this study we propose a novel approach for browsing history visualization, named HistoryLane, which ts the parallel browsing paradigm, common for modern browsers. The main goal of HistoryLane is enabling the user to gain insight into his own or into other users' parallel browsing patterns over time. Principles of HistoryLane visualization approach are formulated based on recommendations, found during structured literature review. These principles constitute the base for a prototype, which was implemented as a Fire- fox extension. To evaluate the e ffectiveness of HistoryLane we conducted a survey and a quantitative experiment. The results of the evaluation show that HistoryLane is perceived by users as effective and intuitive method for browsing history visualization.