How users assess Web pages for information seeking

• Published in: Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology Vol. 56; no. 4; pp. 327 - 344
• Main Authors: Tombros, Anastasios, Ruthven, Ian, Jose, Joemon M.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Hoboken Wiley Subscription Services, Inc., A Wiley Company 15.02.2005; Wiley; Wiley Periodicals Inc
• Subjects: Criteria; Design; Exact sciences and technology; Information and communication sciences; Information science. Documentation; Information seeking behaviour; Library and information science. General aspects; Online information retrieval; Sciences and techniques of general use; Searches; Searching; Studies; Use and user studies. Information needs; User surveys; Users; Web site design; Web sites; Websites; World Wide Web; United Kingdom > UK; Performance evaluation; Survey; Questionnaire; Performance requirement; User study; World wide web; Selection criterion; Information retrieval; Use study; User behavior
• ISSN: 1532-2882; 2330-1635; 1532-2890; 2330-1643
• DOI: 10.1002/asi.20106

In this article, we investigate the criteria used by online searchers when assessing the relevance of Web pages for information‐seeking tasks. Twenty‐four participants were given three tasks each, and they indicated the features of Web pages that they used when deciding about the usefulness of the pages in relation to the tasks. These tasks were presented within the context of a simulated work‐task situation. We investigated the relative utility of features identified by participants (Web page content, structure, and quality) and how the importance of these features is affected by the type of information‐seeking task performed and the stage of the search. The results of this study provide a set of criteria used by searchers to decide about the utility of Web pages for different types of tasks. Such criteria can have implications for the design of systems that use or recommend Web pages.