System and method for determining a quantitative measure of qualitative usability of related Web pages

摘要

A system and method for determining a quantitative measure of qualitative usability of related Web pages. Web pages are accepted that each include at least one hyperlink referencing and proximal cues relating to distal content included in another Web page. An information goal identifying a target Web page is specified. An activation network is formed. A directed graph including nodes corresponding to the Web pages and arcs corresponding to the hyperlinks is built. A weight is assigned to each arc to represent a probability of traversal of the corresponding hyperlink based on a relatedness of keywords in the information goal to the proximal cues included in the referenced Web page. A traversal through the activation network to the node corresponding to the target Web page is evaluated as a quantitative measure of usability.