A cognitive model of document use during a research project. Study I. document selection
Journal of the American Society for Information Science
A visit to the information mall: Web searching behavior of high school students
Journal of the American Society for Information Science - Special topic issue: youth issues in information science
Journal of the American Society for Information Science
Real life, real users, and real needs: a study and analysis of user queries on the web
Information Processing and Management: an International Journal
Video browsing interfaces for the open video project
CHI '02 Extended Abstracts on Human Factors in Computing Systems
What''s Wrong with Internet Searching
What''s Wrong with Internet Searching
Mapping Entry Vocabulary to Unfamiliar Metadata Vocabularies
Mapping Entry Vocabulary to Unfamiliar Metadata Vocabularies
Statistical metadata needs during integration tasks
DCMI '03 Proceedings of the 2003 international conference on Dublin Core and metadata applications: supporting communities of discourse and practice---metadata research & applications
Internet-based knowledge acquisition: Task complexity and performance
Decision Support Systems
Hi-index | 0.00 |
A search for information can be viewed as a series of decisions made by the searcher. Two dimensions of the search environment affect a user's decisions: the user's knowledge, and the configuration of the information retrieval system. Drawing on previous findings on users' lack of search or domain knowledge, this article investigates what the user needs to know to make informed search decisions at the United States Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) Web site, which provides statistical information on labor and related topics. Its extensive Web site is a rich collection of statistical information, ranging from individual statistics such as the current Consumer Price Index (CPI), to a large statistical database called LABSTAT that can be queried to construct a table or time series on the fly. Two models of the search environment and the query process in LABSTAT are presented. They provide complementary views of the decision points at which help may be needed, and also suggest useful help content. Extensive examples based on the industry concept illustrate how the information could assist users' search decisions. The article concludes with a discussion of the role of help facilities in Web searching, and the interesting question of how to initiate the provision of help.