http://hdl.handle.net/11189/1935 Wed, 12 Aug 2026 17:13:29 GMT 2026-08-12T17:13:29Z http://hdl.handle.net/11189/8097 Title: Towards supporting learnability of touch-screen mobile applications Authors: Tokárová, Lucia; Weideman, Melius Abstract: Applications for mobile devices are quickly becoming more complex, resulting in users being empowered to perform more advanced tasks. At the same time mobile user interfaces introduce several challenges to users of traditional interfaces, such as direct manipulation, gesture control, predominance of visual feedback, or limited screen size. These factors could affect the learnability of mobile applications in a negative way. The primary objective of this research project is to investigate how people learn to use mobile applications and how this process can be supported. This needs to be done so that people can perceive the value of the application, accomplish basic tasks and gradually learn new features in a natural way. This would result in a higher degree of productivity for the user. A pilot study will consist of observation of users’ behaviour in the context of skill acquisition within mobile user interfaces. Patterns in users’ behaviour and links between behaviour and background information obtained by questionnaire will be investigated. It is anticipated that the study will demonstrate the correlation between learning strategies and personal information about users. The results of this study will aid in creating learning profiles of representative user groups. Further examination of these profiles should lead to the design of support mechanisms that will encourage various types of application learners in the process of continuous learning of mobile applications. Tue, 01 Jan 2013 00:00:00 GMT http://hdl.handle.net/11189/8097 2013-01-01T00:00:00Z http://hdl.handle.net/11189/8073 Title: Ranking of design elements to improve website visibility Authors: Weideman, Melius Abstract: High rankings for especially mission critical websites in search engine results are mandatory for the success of the marketing effort associated with a large website. Scholarly publications show that little work has been done to measure or identify design elements to be included in website design when considering website visibility. Results of empirical research on the identification of design factors which have a positive influence on the visibility of a webpage are presented. Some theoretical models exist in the literature, and one SEO practitioner model was found. A scoring system was developed to aggregate the results of these models to produce one new way of ranking the elements with a positive effect on website visibility. While only one practitioner and three academic models were used, the scoring was done to give an equal weight to both sets of models. The results indicated that many design elements were known under a variety of names, but in all cases the same trend was clear. The quantity of inlinks pointing to a given website ranked the highest, followed by the use of weight-carrying keywords in body text. In total, 17 factors were listed as having a positive effect on website visibility. However, it was noted that if these factors were “over-implemented”, it could appear to the search engine crawlers as spamdexing. This in turn, could lead to the blacklisting of a website by search engines. In conclusion, it is important that website designers implement this ranking in their designs. Sat, 01 Jan 2011 00:00:00 GMT http://hdl.handle.net/11189/8073 2011-01-01T00:00:00Z http://hdl.handle.net/11189/8072 Title: Link Wheels for search engine ranking improvement? Authors: Zuze, Herbert; Weideman, Melius Abstract: The quality of webpage content has an effect on how search engine crawlers index it. Similarly, the degree of interlinking between websites with a similar focus plays a large role in how search engines perceive them. As a result, link building has become a popular technique in search engine optimisation as it provides a positive impetus to the value search engines attach to a website. Link wheels are identified as one method of significantly improving this ranking of commercial websites. However, some search engine optimisation practitioners maintain that link wheels should not be implemented, since the effort required to create them does not justify the rewards. Five similar test websites will be developed as the basis of the research. Two of them will be based on white hat and another two on black hat techniques. These websites will use either a link wheel or other industry related link building strategies or methodologies other than link wheel. The fifth website will be implemented as a control mechanism without link building or a link wheel structure, and its design will be based on white hat techniques. In parallel with this experimentation, interviews will be conducted to determine how practitioners incorporate link wheels as a link building strategy. It is expected that the link wheel-based website will yield better rankings and a fair comparison in terms of return on investment. The results will be relevant to and usable by academics, industry specialists and online marketers - to enhance the quality and quantity of commercial website links, hence achieving a higher search engine ranking. Description: Poster Tue, 01 Jan 2013 00:00:00 GMT http://hdl.handle.net/11189/8072 2013-01-01T00:00:00Z http://hdl.handle.net/11189/8071 Title: Keyword density in website body text: search engine spamdexing Authors: Zuze, Herbert; Weideman, Melius Abstract: Millions of webpages are being submitted daily for indexing to search engines. As a result of websites increasingly being utilized as marketing tools, website designers and SEO practitioners are implementing various keyword strategies on their webpages to earn a high ranking. For this reason keywords are sometimes being abused and could result in spamdexing. This research project aims at establishing the numerical scaling and point at which keyword rich website text is regarded as spamdexing. The search engine reaction thereafter and how search engines interpret natural language text as being keyword rich or spamdexing is also of interest. Search engines have revealed that they differ in the way they interpret spamdexing, but offer no clear quantitative evidence for the crossover point of keyword dense website text to spamdexing. Scholars have indicated different views in respect of spamdexing, characterised by different quantitative measurements of the correct keyword density in the body text of a webpage. Five websites with varying keyword richness have been designed and will be submitted to three search engines. Interviews will be conducted with various SEO practitioners and website designers to determine their interpretation of spamdexing. The literature review will be used to confirm the validity of results, thus using three sources for the triangulation: Experimenting with three search engines namely Google, Yahoo! and MSN, and their policies SEO practitioners, website designers and A literature review It is expected that some websites will be indexed whilst others will be blacklisted and regarded as spamdexing. A scaling of keyword density will reveal the crossover point between rich keyword density and spamdexing. Keywords should be used with an acceptable level of “richness”, resulting in optimal website ranking and indexing. Furthermore, understanding the crossover point of keyword usage avoids websites being labelled as spamdexing and increases the productivity of web developers, content providers and SEO practitioners. This is a result of the uncertainty of the outcome of their development having been eliminated. Fri, 01 Jan 2010 00:00:00 GMT http://hdl.handle.net/11189/8071 2010-01-01T00:00:00Z