NIST Web Metrics Home Page

Web Metrics Testbed

Good usability is critical to the success of a website. Traditional usability engineering techniques can be difficult to apply to web usability evaluation because the users are heterogeneous and geographically dispersed. Also, website software development cycles demand quick turnaround.

The objective of the NIST Web Metrics Testbed is to explore the feasibility of a range of tools and techniques that support rapid, remote, and automated testing and evaluation of website usability. The prototypes are used to support the usability engineering research of the Visualization and Usability Group (VUG). As part of the Information Access Division of the Information Technology Laboratory at the National Institute of Standards and Technology, VUG encourages industry to use and/or commercialize its ideas.

We are now (January 2003) releasing a new version of Web Metrics with even more improvements. Please take a look at our What's New page for the details.

Technical Overview

The technical overview contains detailed descriptions as well as instructions for downloading the following prototypes:

Web Static Analyzer Tool (WebSAT) - checks web page HTML against typical usability guidelines
Web Category Analysis Tool (WebCAT) - lets the usability engineer construct and conduct a web category analysis
Web Variable Instrumenter Program (WebVIP) - instruments a website to capture a log of user interaction
Framework for Logging Usability Data (FLUD) - a file format and parser for representation of user interaction logs
FLUDViz Tool - produces a 2D visualization of a single user session
VisVIP Tool - produces a 3D visualization of user navigation paths through a website
TreeDec - adds navigation aids to the pages of a website

Register now to get e-mail updates of future developments of the NIST Web Metrics testbed. Registration helps us to measure usage so we can justify continued funding of this work.

General Information and Comments:	webmetrics@nist.gov
Group Manager:	Dr. Sharon Laskowski

Version 3.0
Page last modified: 29 January 2003