Hundreds of folders or one ugly pile: strategies for information search and re-access

Authors:
Anne Aula;Harri Siirtola
Affiliations:
Tampere Unit for Computer-Human Interaction (TAUCHI), Department of Computer Sciences, University of Tampere, Finland;Tampere Unit for Computer-Human Interaction (TAUCHI), Department of Computer Sciences, University of Tampere, Finland
Venue:
INTERACT'05 Proceedings of the 2005 IFIP TC13 international conference on Human-Computer Interaction
Year:
2005

Citing 4
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Abstract

Previous research has identified information search and re-access strategies used by experienced web users, but not the popularity of these strategies. To fill this gap, we collected data from 236 experienced web users via a questionnaire. A cluster analysis of the data revealed three distinct user groups, each having different search and re-access strategies. The group of “professional searchers” was the only one to use Boolean operators in searching and most of the advanced strategies for information re-access. In contrast, the strategies of the other two groups were much simpler. These results show that the previous findings on advanced search and re-access strategies may describe the strategies of information professionals, but not those of other web users, regardless of their extensive experience.