@inproceedings{d94e0a740908430cb31715dda34b18f3,
title = "User session identification based on strong regularities in inter-Activity time",
abstract = "Session identification is a common strategy used to develop metrics for web analytics and perform behavioral analyses of user-facing systems. Past work has argued that session identification strategies based on an inactivity threshold is inherently arbitrary or has advocated that thresholds be set at about 30 minutes. In this work, we demonstrate a strong regularity in the temporal rhythms of user initi-ated events across several different domains of online activ-ity (incl. video gaming, search, page views and volunteer contributions). We describe a methodology for identifying clusters of user activity and argue that the regularity with which these activity clusters appear implies a good rule-of-thumb inactivity threshold of about 1 hour. We conclude with implications that these temporal rhythms may have for system design based on our observations and theories of goal-directed human activity.",
keywords = "Activity, Analytics, Human behavior, Metrics, Modeling, Regularities, User session",
author = "Halfaker, {Aaron L} and Oliver Keyes and Daniel Kluver and Jacob Thebault-Spieker and Tien Nguyen and Kenneth Shores and Anuradha Uduwage and Morten Warncke-Wang",
year = "2015",
month = may,
day = "18",
doi = "10.1145/2736277.2741117",
language = "English (US)",
series = "WWW 2015 - Proceedings of the 24th International Conference on World Wide Web",
publisher = "Association for Computing Machinery, Inc",
pages = "410--418",
booktitle = "WWW 2015 - Proceedings of the 24th International Conference on World Wide Web",
note = "24th International Conference on World Wide Web, WWW 2015 ; Conference date: 18-05-2015 Through 22-05-2015",
}