Look-ahead and look-behind shortcuts in large item category hierarchies: The impact on search performance

Websites use shortcuts to facilitate navigation of large hierarchies of item categories. Two common types of shortcuts used for this purpose are location breadcrumbs and down-to-child/up-to-parent links; frequently both are employed simultaneously. The combined used of these shortcuts provide proximal cues which enable the user to look-ahead and look-behind in the navigational structure. In this study, the impact of shortcut usage on search performance on a known-item search task is estimated. A controlled experiment was conducted using a realistic hypertext hierarchy of item categories. The results indicate that greater use of shortcuts decreases both time on task and lostness for the user, and that the decrease is associated with increased depth in the hierarchy. These findings provide insight into possible performance trade-offs involved in website designs that include look-ahead shortcuts for navigating large item category hierarchies.