Search (45 results, page 1 of 3)

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Abstract

This study investigated Simon's behavioral decisionmaking theories of bounded rationality and satisficing in relation to young people's decision making in the World Wide Web, and considered the role of personal preferences in Web-based decisions. It employed a qualitative research methodology involving group interviews with 22 adolescent females. Data analysis took the form of iterative pattern coding using QSR NUD*IST Vivo qualitative data analysis software. Data analysis revealed that the study participants did operate within the limits of bounded rationality. These limits took the form of time constraints, information overload, and physical constraints. Data analysis also uncovered two major satisficing behaviors-reduction and termination. Personal preference was found to play a major role in Web site evaluation in the areas of graphic/multimedia and subject content preferences. This study has related implications for Web site designers and for adult intermediaries who work with young people and the Web

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Abstract

This paper presents findings from a study of how knowledge workers use the Web to seek external information as part of their daily work. 34 users from 7 companies took part in the study. Participants were mainly IT-specialists, managers, and research/marketing/consulting staff working in organizations that included a large utility company; a major bank, and a consulting firm. Participants answered a detailed questionnaire and were interviewed individually in order to understand their information needs and information seeking preferences. A custom-developed WebTracker software application was installed on each of their work place PCs, and participants' Web-use activities were then recorded continuously during two-week periods

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Abstract

A study of the "real world" Web information searching behavior of 206 college students over a 10-month period showed that, contrary to expectations, the users adopted a more passive or browsing approach to Web information searching and became more eclectic in their selection of Web hosts as they gained experience. The study used a longitudinal transaction log analysis of the URLs accessed during 5,431 user days of Web information searching to detect changes in information searching behavior associated with increased experience of using the Web. The findings have implications for the design of future Web information retrieval tools

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Abstract

The emergence of information portal systems in the past few years has led to a greatly enhanced Web-based environment for users seeking information online. While considerable research has been conducted an user information-seeking behavior in regular IR environments over the past decade, this paper focuses specifically an how users in a medical science and clinical setting carry out their daily information seeking through a customizable information portal system (MyWelch). We describe our initial study an analyzing Web usage data from MyWelch to see whether the results conform to the features and patterns established in current information-seeking models, present several observations regarding user information-seeking behavior in a portal environment, outline possible long-term user information-seeking patterns based an usage data, and discuss the direction of future research an user information-seeking behavior in the MyWelch portal environment.

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Abstract

The research reported here was an exploratory study that sought to discover the effects of human individual differences an Web search strategy. These differences consisted of (a) study approaches, (b) cognitive and demographic features, and (c) perceptions of and preferred approaches to Web-based information seeking. Sixtyeight master's students used AItaVista to search for information an three assigned search topics graded in terms of complexity. Five hundred seven search queries were factor analyzed to identify relationships between the individual difference variables and Boolean and best-match search strategies. A number of consistent patterns of relationship were found. As task complexity increased, a number of strategic shifts were also observed an the part of searchers possessing particular combinations of characteristics. A second article (published in this issue of JASIST; Ford, Miller, & Moss, 2005) presents a combined analyses of the data including a series of regression analyses.

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Abstract

This is the second of two articles published in this issue of JASIST reporting the results of a study investigating relationships between Web search strategies and a range of human individual differences. In this article we provide a combined analysis of the factor analyses previously presented separately in relation to each of three groups of human individual difference (study approaches, cognitive and demographic features, and perceptions of and approaches to Internet-based information seeking). It also introduces two series of regression analyses conducted an data spanning all three individual difference groups. The results are discussed in terms of the extent to which they satisfy the original aim of this exploratory research, namely to identify any relationships between search strategy and individual difference variables for which there is a prima facie case for more focused systematic study. It is argued that a number of such relationships do exist. The results of the project are summarized and suggestions are made for further research.

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Abstract

This study sought to investigate the effects of cognitive style (field dependent and field independent) and on-line database search experience (novice and experienced) on the WWW search performance of undergraduate college students (n=48). It also attempted to find user factors that could be used to predict search efficiency. search performance, the dependent variable was defined in 2 ways: (1) time required for retrieving a relevant information item, and (2) the number of nodes traversed for retrieving a relevant information item. the search tasks required were carried out on a University Web site, and included a factual task and a topical search task of interest to the participant. Results indicated that while cognitive style (FD/FI) significantly influenced the search performance of novice searchers, the influence was greatly reduced in those searchers who had on-line database search experience. Based on the findings, suggestions for possible changes to the design of the current Web interface and to user training programs are provided

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Abstract

Finding information an the Web can be a much more complex search process than previously experienced an many pre-Web information retrieval systems given that finding content online does not have to happen via a search algorithm typed into a search field. Rather, the Web allows for a myriad of search strategies. Although there are numerous studies of Web search techniques, these studies often limit their focus to just one part of the search process and are not based an the behavior of the general user population, nor do they include information about the users. To remedy these shortcomings, this project looks at how peopie find information online in the context of their other media use, their general Internet use patterns, in addition to using information about their demographic background and social support networks. This article describes the methodology in detail, and suggests that a mix of survey instruments and in-person observations can yield the type of rich data set that is necessary to understand in depth the differences in people's information retrieval behavior online.

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Abstract

This paper reports the results of an empirical study into gender differences in collaborative Web searching, conducted in a grade-six classroom of a Canadian elementary school. Searches undertaken by 16 same-sex groups of two or three students (six of boys, ten of girls) for information to support a class assignment were captured on videotape. The multiple search sessions took place over several weeks. An analysis of the search sessions reveals that the groups of boys formulated queries comprising fewer keywords than the groups of girls, the boys spent less time on individual pages than the girls, the boys clicked more hypertext links per minute than the girls, and in general were more active while online. The study overall demonstrates academic, affective and behavior differences between grade-six boys and girls working in same-sex groups on a Web-based class project.

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Abstract

This article reports on a model and patterns of use of a library catalog that can be accessed through the Internet. Three categories of users are identified. individuals who perform a search of the catalog, tourists who look only at opening pages of the library catalog's site, and Web spiders that come to the site to obtain pages for indexing the Web. A number of types of use activities are also identified, and can be grouped with the presearch phase (which takes place before any searching begins): the search phase, the display phase (in which users display the results of their search), and phases in which users make errors, ask the system for help or assistance, and take other actions. An empirical investigation of patterns of use of a university Web-based library catalog was conducted for 479 days. During that period, the characteristics of about 2.5 million sessions were recorded and analyzed, and usage trends were identified. Of the total, 62% of the sessions were for users who performed a search, 27% were from spiders, and 11% were for tourists. During the study period, the average search session lasted about 5 minutes when the study began and had increased to about 10 minutes 16 months later. An average search consisted of about 1.5 presearch actions lasting about 25 seconds, about 5.3 display actions, and 2.5 searches per session. The latter two categories are in the range of 35-37 seconds per session each. There were major differences in usage (number of searches, search time, number of display actions, and display time), depending upon the database accessed

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Abstract

Two studies are presented that investigate information seeking behaviour on the Internet. In study one, soccer fans' information seeking on the World Wide Web is investigated. In study two, access rates to a cancer information Web site are analysed. It is tentatively argued that there is a tendency for people to access information more commonly avoided in "real life", although in the case of football fans, the tendency to "bask in reflected glory" remains when online, while cutting off reflected failure is minimised. Implications for understanding and researching psychological processes of Web browsing behaviour are discussed.

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Abstract

As more people gain at-home access to the Internet, information seeking an the Web has become embedded in everyday life. The objective of this study was to characterize the home as an information use environment and to identify a range of information seeking and Websearch behaviors at home. Twelve Northern California residents were recruited, and the data were collected through semi-structured at-home interviews based an a self-reported Search Activities Diary that subjects kept over a 3-5 day period. The data were analyzed an four levels: home environment, information seeking goals, information retrieval interaction, and search query. Eindings indicated that the home, indeed, provided a distinct information use environment beyond physical setting alone in which the subjects used the Web for diverse purposes and interests. Based an the findings, the relationships among home environment, Web context, and interaction situation were identified with respect to user goals and information-seeking behaviors.

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Abstract

Subject content analysis of Web query terms is essential to understand Web searching interests. Such analysis includes exploring search topics and observing changes in their frequency distributions with time. To provide a basis for in-depth analysis of users' search interests on a larger scale, this article presents a query categorization approach to automatically classifying Web query terms into broad subject categories. Because a query is short in length and simple in structure, its intended subject(s) of search is difficult to judge. Our approach, therefore, combines the search processes of real-world search engines to obtain highly ranked Web documents based on each unknown query term. These documents are used to extract cooccurring terms and to create a feature set. An effective ranking function has also been developed to find the most appropriate categories. Three search engine logs in Taiwan were collected and tested. They contained over 5 million queries from different periods of time. The achieved performance is quite encouraging compared with that of human categorization. The experimental results demonstrate that the approach is efficient in dealing with large numbers of queries and adaptable to the dynamic Web environment. Through good integration of human and machine efforts, the frequency distributions of subject categories in response to changes in users' search interests can be systematically observed in real time. The approach has also shown potential for use in various information retrieval applications, and provides a basis for further Web searching studies.

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Abstract

Usability of Web sites has become an increasingly important area of research as Web sites proliferate and problems with use are noted. Generally, aspects of Web sites that have been investigated focus on such areas as overall design and navigation. The exploratory study reported on here investigates one specific component of a Web site-the index structure. By employing index usability metrics developed by Liddy and Jörgensen (1993; Jörgensen & Liddy, 1996) and modified to accommodate a hypertext environment, the study compared the effectiveness and efficiency of 20 subjects who used one existing index (the A-Z index on the FedStats Web site at http://www.fedstats.gov) and three experimental variants to complete five researcher-generated tasks. User satisfaction with the indexes was also evaluated. The findings indicate that a hypertext index with multiple access points for each concept, all linked to the same resource, led to greater effectiveness and efficiency of retrieval on almost all measures. Satisfaction measures were more variable. The study offers insight into potential improvements in the design of Web-based indexes and provides preliminary assessment of the validity of the measures employed

Type

a

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Abstract

Purpose - A common criticism of research into information seeking on the internet is that information seekers are restricted by the demands of the researcher. Another criticism is that the search topics, are often imposed by the researcher, and; particularly when working with children, domain knowledge could be as important as information-seeking skills. The research reported here attempts to address both these problems. Design/methodology/approach - A total of 15 children, aged 11 to 16, were each set three "think aloud" internet searches. In the first, they were asked to recall the last time they had sought information on the internet, and to repeat the search. For the second, they were given a word, asked to interpret it, then asked to search for their interpretation. For the third, they were asked to recall the last time they had been unsuccessful in a search, and to repeat the search. While performing each task, the children were encouraged to explain their actions. Findings - The paper finds that the factors that determined a child's ability to search successfully appeared to be: the amount of experience the child had of using the internet; the amount of guidance, both from adults and from peers; and the child's ability to explore the virtual environment, and to use the tools available for so doing. Originality/value - Many of the searches performed by participants in this paper were not related to schoolwork, and so some of the search approaches differed from those taught by teachers. Instead, they evolved through exploration and exchange of ideas. Further studies of this sort could provide insights of value to designers of web environments.

Type

a