TOWARDS A COGNITIVE THEORY OF INFORMATION ACCESSING - AN EMPIRICAL-STUDY

How would users access an 'ideal' computer-based information retrieval system? What strategies would they use in seeking information if they had access to a truly expert knowledge-base which could respond effectively to any kind of questioning, phrased in any way? No such system exists. But this project provided the next best thing-a computer system which allowed unlimited access to genuinely expert knowledge. Unbeknown at the time of learning to 30 volunteer users who accessed the system, the knowledge-base included 2 human experts, communicating with them from a different building, via the computer screen. The interactions between users and the system were logged and analysed. The results reveal a number of different information accessing strategies linked to individual user characteristics and retrieval effectiveness. Implications for the design of improved information retrieval systems are discussed.