USER PERSISTENCE IN DISPLAYING ONLINE CATALOG POSTINGS - LUIS

User persistence in displaying postings is a significant human factor in design of computer-driven information systems, including online catalogs. Expert opinion and one study of users of a first-generation online catalog have suggested that users normally display no more than 30 to 35 postings. In this article rue report a replication of the first-generation online catalog persistence study. The follow-up study wets on a second-generation system with a larger database. The replication found that more second-generation system users than first-generation system users reported overload (26% versus 11%). Second-generation system users considered 100 postings (instead of 15) ''too many.'' Analysis of transaction logs from the second-generation system revealed that partially persistent users typically displayed 28 postings, but that overloaded users did not outnumber totally persistent users until postings retrieved exceeded 200. The findings suggest that, given sufficient resources, designers should still consider 30 to 35 postings typical persistence, but the findings also justify treating 100 or 200 postings as a common threshold of overload.