[Sigia-l] Are web users more sophisticated

[Susan Doran]

Hi All,

What a great post! And I very much enjoyed reading Broder's article.

Here's my response, anecdotal as it is.

A friend and I were just diiscussing this very topic this past weekend.
The web is become so glutted with information, it's becoming
increasingly difficult for anyone to locate what they want using a
standard web search engine when they know it's out there, not to mention
performing a search and getting hit overload--so that it's often
time-prohibitive to sift through all results in search of the "best" or
"right" information.

My friend and I are both librarians, and have been doing online
searches since the late '80s, and are failt skilled. We both max out
Advanced Search capabilities (and still get glutted with too many and
false hits). We were exploring what can be done on both the
indexing/metatagging end, and on the search interface end. 

We mused over this questions of user "sophistication," and my friend
framed it up thus: (1) many people have become more or less accustomed
to continually learning--vis-a-vis technology--and perhaps the argument
that people just want to type in a keyword is becoming outmoded--i.e.,
more people are ready to learn truly more advanced searching; and (2)
for some new users, even learning to *type* is a challenge. I know
that's true for my father, for example. So when he sees a wide open
space responds by (a) typing URLs into the Yahoo search box, or, as
frequently, (b) typing search terms into the Address bar.

We didn't solve the problems of the web IR world this weekend, but did
conclude that more can be done to address both ends of users--the
"sophisticated" searcher who probably would embrace even more
sophisticated methods of searching, if they were readily available, as
well as for the new users, who are starting from Square 1.

Just a few informal, non-research-based thoughts...

Thanks,
Susan

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Susan Doran, Manager
GAO Information Management Group
c/o Lockheed Martin Technology Services
441 G Street NW - Room 1516
202-512-4367
susandoran at gao.gov
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~