Usability Views Article Details  home | timeline | recent | popular | e-reports | userati | books | about  Four Modes of Seeking Information and How to Design for Them (14 Mar 2006) Once you understand the modes, examples are easy to spot during user research. Known-items show up in heavy use of search with accurate keywords, when users can easily list what they need from the site and support e-mail will ask for specific content. Exploratory information seeking shows up in search when vague phrases or repeated searches for similar keywords are used; when users express that they are researching, looking for background information, or “finding out about” something; and when support e-mails ask for general information. “Don’t know what you need to know” is a little harder to identify. In interviews, users may express that they just want to keep up with things. It may also be clear that users do not have sufficient background knowledge or have not read information they should have. You can identify gaps in content by walking through the content, acting out a scenario from the user perspective, and checking that sufficient information is available. Re-finding is easy to identify if your site has user registration and the logs show what pages people visit. You can also look at the number of items in wish lists. Add this article to Del.icio.us Article URL: http://www.boxesandarrows.com/view/four_modes_of_seeking_information_and_how_to_design_for_them Read 226 more articles from Boxes and Arrows sorted by date, popularity, or title. Next Article: Mastering Ajax, Part 4: Exploiting DOM for Web response          Books about Usability | Information Architecture | Information Visualisation | Technology History This site is a labour of love built by Chris McEvoy

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