Modeling Web Browser Interactions Using FSM

Web applications can only be accessed through dedicated client systems called Web browsers. Most current Web browsers offer many tools or facilities for Web page revisiting, including the Back and Forward buttons, Bookmarks and History lists. These tools or facilities, on the one hand, help the users find the necessary information in hypermedia space; on the other hand, however, they also confuse the users due to their specific interface design against user cognitions. In this paper, special care is taken on Web browser interactions during the user´s traversal within hypermedia space in order to specify possible inconsistencies between Web browser interfaces and user cognitions. GFSMs (Guarded Finite State Machines), which are augmented FSMs are employed as a tool to model Web browser interactions. For illustration, a simple login system of a Web application is exemplified.