Peiling Wang

Users' interaction with World Wide Web resources: an exploratory study using a holistic approach

Abstract This paper presents the first part of the research on user–Web interaction: a multidimensional model, methodology, and general findings. The objectives of this study are three-fold: (1) to explore factors of user–Web interaction in finding factual information and what happens during this interaction; (2) to develop a conceptual framework for studying user–Web interaction; and (3) to apply a process-tracing method for conducting holistic user–Web studies. The proposed model consists of three components: user, interface, and the World Wide Web. User–Web interaction is viewed as a communication process facilitated through an interface. A process-tracing technique has been designed to capture the processes of user-Web interactions. Twenty-four graduate students participated in this study. Prior to the interaction, each participant was given a questionnaire to report his/her computer and Web experience, the State Trait Anxiety Inventory (form Y1 and form Y2) to measure affective states, and an individually administered Embedded Figure Test to measure cognitive style. Each participant used the Web to find answers to two factual questions. Both the processes (continuous screen shots) and the concurrent verbalizations of thoughts were recorded in synchronized video–audio data. The findings provided rich information on users’ cognitive, affective and physical behaviors. The proposed model is used to present the findings of user behavior in connections with interfaces and the Web.

A cognitive model of document use during a research project. Study I. document selection

This article proposes a model of document selection by real users of a bibliographic retrieval system. It reports on Part 1 of a longitudinal study of decision making on document use by academics during an actual research project. (Part 2 followed up the same users on how the selected documents were actually used in subsequent stages.) The participants are 25 self-selected faculty and graduate students in Agricultural Economics. After a reference interview, the researcher conducted a search of DIALOG databases and prepared a printout. The users selected documents from this printout; they were asked to read and think aloud while selecting documents. Their verbal reports were recorded and analyzed from a utility-theoretic perspective. The following model of the decision-making in the selection process emerged: document information elements (DIEs) in document records provide the information for judging documents on 11 criteria (including topicality, orientation, quality, novelty, and authority); the criteria judgments are combined in an assessment of document value along five dimensions (epistemic, functional, conditional, social, and emotional values), leading to the use decision. This model accounts for the use of personal knowledge and decision strategies applied in the selection process. The model has implications for the design of an intelligent document selection assistant.

A cognitive model of document use during a research project. Study II. Decisions at the reading and citing stages

This article reports on the follow-up study of a two-part project designed to study the decision-making process underlying how academic researchers select documents retrieved from online databases, consult or read, and cite documents during a research project. The participants are 15 of the 25 agricultural economics users who participated in the original study of document-selection conducted in 1992. They were interviewed about subsequent decisions on documents considered relevant and selected in 1992, as well as documents cited in their written products but not in the original searches. Of particular interest in this article are the decision criteria and rules they apply to documents as they progress through the project. The first study in 1992 emphasized the selection processes and resulted in a document selection model; the 1995 study concentrates on the reading and citing decisions. The model derived from this project shows document use as a decision-making process with decisions occurring at three points or stages during a research project: selecting, reading, and citing. It is an expansion of the document selection model developed in the 1992 study, identifies more criteria, and clarifies the criteria and rules that are in use at each stage. The follow-up study not only found that all but one of the criteria identified in selection re-occur in connection with reading and citing decisions, but also identified 14 new criteria. It also found that decision rules applied in selection decisions are applied throughout the project.

A Qualitative Study of Citing Behavior: Contributions, Criteria, and Metalevel Documentation Concerns

This qualitative study of the citing motivations of twelve agricultural economists (faculty and doctoral students) identifies several factors they considered in making citing decisions: the contributions of the document to their research, the criteria they apply to the documents, and metalevel documentation concerns. The article reports citing behavior derived from a larger empirical, longitudinal study tracing document use during research projects and thus includes behavior related to decisions both to cite and not to cite. An important finding is the existence of metalevel concerns that influence a decision to cite a document, in addition to situational factors related to its actual use during research.

Children's conceptual structures of science categories and the design of Web directories

Eleven middle school children constructed hierarchical maps for two science categories selected from two Web directories, Yahooligans! and KidsClick! For each category, children constructed a pair of maps: one without links and one with links. Forty-four maps were analyzed to identify similarities and differences. The structures of the maps were compared to the structures employed by the directories. Children were able to construct hierarchical maps and articulate the relationships among the concepts. At the global level (whole map), childrens maps were not alike and did not match the structures of the Web directories. At the local levels (superordinate and subordinate), however, children shared similarities in the conceptual configurations, especially for the concrete concepts. For these concepts, substantial overlap was found between the childrens structures and those employed in the directories. For the abstract concepts the configurations were diverse and did not match those in the directories. The findings of this study have implications for design of systems that are more supportive of childrens conceptual structures.

Health information searching behavior in MedlinePlus and the impact of tasks

Consumer health information is increasingly available online, but this vast amount of information is not necessarily accessible to general consumers. To design effective health information websites, it is critically important to gain an in-depth understanding of how consumers search for health information in these systems. This study is an attempt to explore consumer health information searching behavior in web-based health information spaces by observing their search behaviors in MedlinePlus. Nineteen undergraduate students accomplished three search tasks in MedlinePlus. The participants used both searching and browsing as interaction strategies. This paper reports on the findings of their searching behaviors, particularly query construction, query reformulation, and access to results; and their browsing behaviors, particularly access to different resources, health topics, and related topics. Furthermore, we examined if the number of concepts involved in search tasks had any impact on search behaviors.

Analysis of query keywords of sports-related queries using visualization and clustering

It cannot be overemphasized that changes in concepts have far more impact than new discoveries

Modeling Web session behavior using cluster analysis: A comparison of three search settings

Session characteristics taken from large transaction logs of three Web search environments (academic website, public search engine, consumer health information service) are modeled using cluster analysis to determine if different session groups emerge for each environment. The analysis reveals that several distinct clusters of session behaviors emerge, with brief “hit and run” sessions on focused topics, brief sessions on popular topics, and sustained sessions on focused topics with more query modifications. A better understanding of session characteristics can help system designers by developing interfaces or search features that cater to identifiable groups of users based on their search behaviors.

Mining web search behaviors: Strategies and techniques for data modeling and analysis

There is a growing interest in modeling Web searching behaviors using query log data. In this project, we identified some gaps in current research. We propose to model Web search behaviors along three dimensions: interactions, linguistic and cognitive behaviors. We propound Web search session as a vital important concept to study interactive behaviors using query logs. A highly granular, comprehensive relational model is presented for data extraction and transformation along with strategies and methods for session identification. To facilitate analysis, we developed an interactive Web tool for exploring different session thresholds. We demonstrate statistically that the 80-20 empirical rule shows promise for setting session boundaries. In addition, we recommend that decisions for session boundary thresholds should be determined based on specific query corpus characteristics such as type and size of the database searched, and type of searchers who submit the queries. Our approach is based on the fact that data mining researchers do not always know all the hypotheses that the data can answer at the outset and the log data are diverse across environments due to the lack of standardization. This model maximizes transactional data inclusion, is flexible in handling data content, and can be extended easily to incorporate new hypotheses and new data elements as mining progresses.

An exploratory study into perceived task complexity, topic specificity and usefulness for integrated search

We investigate the relations between user perceptions of work task complexity, topic specificity, and usefulness of retrieved results. 23 academic researchers submitted detailed descriptions of 65 real-life work tasks in the physics domain, and assessed documents retrieved from an integrated collection consisting of full text research articles in PDF, abstracts, and bibliographic records [6]. Bibliographic records were found to be more precise than full text PDFs, regardless of task complexity and topic specificity. PDFs were found to be more useful. Overall, for higher task complexity and topic specificity bibliographic records demonstrated much higher precision than did PDFs on a four-graded usefulness scale.