{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2025,10,9]],"date-time":"2025-10-09T21:04:14Z","timestamp":1760043854627,"version":"3.41.2"},"reference-count":20,"publisher":"Emerald","issue":"3","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2006,5,1]],"date-time":"2006-05-01T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1146441600000},"content-version":"tdm","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/www.emerald.com\/insight\/site-policies"}],"content-domain":{"domain":[],"crossmark-restriction":false},"short-container-title":[],"published-print":{"date-parts":[[2006,5,1]]},"abstract":"<jats:sec><jats:title content-type=\"abstract-heading\">Purpose<\/jats:title><jats:p>To create a benchmark for design evaluation of commercial web sites, to model customers' site navigation behavior, and to develop and implement algorithms for link\u2010structure personalization.<\/jats:p><\/jats:sec><jats:sec><jats:title content-type=\"abstract-heading\">Design\/methodology\/approach<\/jats:title><jats:p>The principal methodology used for design benchmarking is a survey of corporate web sites of some US Fortune 500 companies and top Indian companies and statistical analysis of the data so collected. The principal methodological approach for modeling user behavior, user's interest and algorithms for link\u2010structure personalization, is the development of a Markov decision process (MDP) in the overall framework of a semi\u2010Markov model and implementing the same in a link\u2010structure personalization system.<\/jats:p><\/jats:sec><jats:sec><jats:title content-type=\"abstract-heading\">Findings<\/jats:title><jats:p>It is observed that the functional web site features significantly differ for the sites dealing with various product categories whereas the non\u2010functional features do not. The over\u2010stressed or under\u2010stressed features in the Indian web sites are found. The statistics generated from the user behavior model are validated against the real life user behavior and found satisfactory. The appropriateness of the link\u2010structure personalization algorithms is established by comparing the set of links generated by the algorithm with the links generated by the optimal policy of the underlying MDP.<\/jats:p><\/jats:sec><jats:sec><jats:title content-type=\"abstract-heading\">Research limitations\/implications<\/jats:title><jats:p>The corporate that have been considered are conglomerates offering a number of products and services. But we categorize these sites based on their major product offering. Our approach of modeling the user behavior as a semi\u2010Markov process is possible because of our advanced implementation infrastructure. Undesirable network effects like delays, bandwidth, etc. may not make such a model that attractive in a very traditional type of environment. But the data collected in such environment can still be mined after adequate pre\u2010processing and appropriate normalization<\/jats:p><\/jats:sec><jats:sec><jats:title content-type=\"abstract-heading\">Practical implications<\/jats:title><jats:p>Using the benchmark proposed in this model a webmaster can evaluate his web site. The sites with low site evaluation index can be improved by adding features with high weight depending on the product offering of the company. Webmaster can design the three level information architecture described in the paper and subsequently implement link\u2010structure personalization algorithm to improve site navigability. Besides improving site navigability the user behavior data collected thereon can be mined to generate other valuable information.<\/jats:p><\/jats:sec><jats:sec><jats:title content-type=\"abstract-heading\">Originality\/value<\/jats:title><jats:p>To assess and enhance the usability of an ecommerce site our work proposes: a benchmark to evaluate commercial web site design; a stochastic model to study and understand user behavior; an algorithm to personalize link\u2010structure of a commercial web site, and a general framework to implement a link\u2010structure personalization system.<\/jats:p><\/jats:sec>","DOI":"10.1108\/10662240610673682","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2006,7,4]],"date-time":"2006-07-04T08:47:45Z","timestamp":1152002865000},"page":"248-266","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":10,"title":["Design benchmarking, user behavior analysis and link\u2010structure personalization in commercial web sites"],"prefix":"10.1108","volume":"16","author":[{"given":"Mamata","family":"Jenamani","sequence":"first","affiliation":[],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Pratap K.J.","family":"Mohapatra","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Sujoy","family":"Ghose","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]}],"member":"140","reference":[{"key":"key2022020420262990800_b1","unstructured":"Awad, E.M. 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