TY - JOUR
T1 - Website structure improvement
T2 - quadratic assignment problem approach and ant colony meta-heuristic technique
AU - Qahri Saremi, Hamed
AU - Abedin, Babak
AU - Meimand Kermani, Amirhosein
PY - 2008/1/15
Y1 - 2008/1/15
N2 - Website usability and link structure analysis has become a major concern for companies, since more online services are going to be offered through websites. While different usability assessment methods has been proposed and used in the previous studies, we use Graph theory definitions to model the website. The paper then discusses the extension of application of quadratic assignment problem (QAP) method in the context of usability and uses this method to improve website link structure and navigation. Practicing our proposed method, a real case of Iranian Civil Aviation Organization (CAO) is put forward and discussed. Doing so, ant colony meta-heuristic technique is employed to solve the problem. Findings show that the method is promising and practical in improving website structure and usability, as it produces alternative layout and improvement strategies along with of its pioneering in applying the rich literature of QAP in solving the problems of navigation in websites.
AB - Website usability and link structure analysis has become a major concern for companies, since more online services are going to be offered through websites. While different usability assessment methods has been proposed and used in the previous studies, we use Graph theory definitions to model the website. The paper then discusses the extension of application of quadratic assignment problem (QAP) method in the context of usability and uses this method to improve website link structure and navigation. Practicing our proposed method, a real case of Iranian Civil Aviation Organization (CAO) is put forward and discussed. Doing so, ant colony meta-heuristic technique is employed to solve the problem. Findings show that the method is promising and practical in improving website structure and usability, as it produces alternative layout and improvement strategies along with of its pioneering in applying the rich literature of QAP in solving the problems of navigation in websites.
KW - Ant colony
KW - Link structure
KW - Quadratic assignment problem (QAP)
KW - Web navigation
KW - Website
KW - Website architecture
KW - Website usability
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=36749006630&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1016/j.amc.2007.04.095
DO - 10.1016/j.amc.2007.04.095
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:36749006630
SN - 0096-3003
VL - 195
SP - 285
EP - 298
JO - Applied Mathematics and Computation
JF - Applied Mathematics and Computation
IS - 1
ER -