Twenty-five years of end-user searching, Part 1: Research findings

  • Authors:

  • Karen Markey

  • Affiliations:

  • School of Information, 1085 South University Avenue, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 48109–1107.

  • Venue:
  • Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology
  • Year:
  • 2007

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Abstract

This is the first part of a two-part article that reviews 25 years of published research findings on end-user searching in online information retrieval (IR) systems. In Part 1 [Markey, 2007], the author seeks to answer the following questions: What characterizes the queries that end users submit to online IR systems? What search features do people use? What features would enable them to improve on the retrievals they have in hand? What features are hardly ever used? What do end users do in response to the system's retrievals? Are end users satisfied with their online searches? Summarizing searches of online IR systems by the search features people use everyday makes information retrieval appear to be a very simplistic one-stop event. In Part 2, the author examines current models of the information retrieval process, demonstrating that information retrieval is much more complex and involves changes in cognition, feelings, and/or events during the information seeking process. She poses a host of new research questions that will further our understanding about end-user searching of online IR systems. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.