ANTS: An Automatic Navigability Testing Tool for Hypermedia

Multiple navigational graphs can be obtained as the result of the design stage of a hypermedia-based artifact. The only way to know which one adapts better to the user navigational metaphor is by mean of usability testing. This technique is expensive in terms of the number of human resources needed to perform it, and it isn’t able to record spontaneous user behavior. The use of automatic testing tools is an interesting and cheap alternative that avoids the problems commented. We tested our own automatic navigability testing system (ANTS) conducting an experiment to determine where users expect to find the navigational bar of a web site.