Information seeking behaviors are essential for users of internet sources. Seeking information in the same format time and time again helps build a greater understanding of searching methods but helps provide a commonality for those users.
In two articles one by Daniel Rose, Reconciling Information-Seeking Behavior With Search User Interfaces for the Web and the other by Scott Nicholson Digital Library Archaeology: a Conceptual Framework for Understanding Library Use Through Artifact-Based Evaluation focus on information seeking behavior of those using internet and digital library resources.
Rose stated there are three areas in which knowledge of user behavior can be addressed for future interface design:
- Goal of the user when conducting a search
- Cultural and situational context at the time of the search
- Iterative nature of the search task itself.
Rose also stated there are specific goals associated with a search they include:
- Getting a specific piece of information
- Getting an answer to an open-ended
- Getting advice
- Exploring a general topic
Searching on the web in the future may allow individuals the ability to just search for one of the specific goals and have a tailored search engine to those specific needs. The interfacing of common search engines will greatly change to help accommodate for those search behaviors. It will be a great day when individuals can go to the Internet go to a specific engine and find what they are looking for without the useless filler sites and dropped links. Having specialized search engines can also help those novice users and help propel them into searching success.
Nicholson has described a very interesting topic, digital archaeology. What an amazing topic? I mean Indian Jones has nothing on a digital archaeologist. The concept of developing a digital archaeology of search patterns, fragmented data, user information, and combining those to form a specialized approach for digital libraries is truly fascinating.
The shift from traditional archaeology to new archaeology is not defining what the items are but how and why they are there. How the items got there, why they were searched and what significance do those items play for the users of information? Those questions are the ground for digital archaeologist.
According to Nicholson there is a cycle of information seeking behavior and these cycle is essential for understanding the seeking behavior of customers:
- collection
- induction
- deduction
- prediction
- testing
Nicholson also states that web-based information resources do not use hypothesis based research when evaluating their services; which can result in the stunted growth of search sciences. By applying these conceptualized methods in searching research, the possibilities are endless and customer satisfaction can only increase.