CIPHER IS THE MESSAGE: USEFULNESS AND EFFECTS OF WEB METRICS ON USER BEHAVIOR

Abstract

This article suggests that figures –of traffic, navigation and use– are one of the fundamental and promotional contents of web itself as a system. The numbers and web metrics have important effects on the behavior of users. This study outlines a proposal to analyze and classify behaviors and reactions to the communication and visualization of metrics and web’s measurements, as one of the results of an extensive ongoing research program entitled Observatorio de Fenómenos Emergentes de Información (Emergent Information Phenomena Observatory) - OFEI.