Ct. Meadow et al., SPECULATIONS ON THE MEASUREMENT AND USE OF USER CHARACTERISTICS IN INFORMATION-RETRIEVAL EXPERIMENTATION, Canadian journal of information and library science, 19(4), 1994, pp. 1-22
Citations number
54
Categorie Soggetti
Information Science & Library Science","Information Science & Library Science
Our purpose is to present a recently completed composite view of sever
al user studies in information retrieval. This paper contains personal
conclusions and speculations based on these studies, rather than form
al statistical results, which so often are not comparable from one exp
eriment to another. We suggest a taxonomy of user characteristics for
such studies, in order to make results comparable. Methods and effects
of user training are discussed, then manner of expression of a query
or information need, conduct of a search, use of the system command la
nguage or its equivalent, analysis by the user of retrieved informatio
n, and user satisfaction with outcome. We conclude with suggestions fo
r system design and experimental methodology.