[Sigia-l] Is there research on the value of indexes, controlled vocabularie s, etc?

[Augustine, Liz]

One of our partners has created a browser environment that contains material
such as online help (and they provide a lot of information). They're proud
of their interface and feel that a user can find anything by using full-text
search. I've come up with a couple of anecdotes that illustrate how hard it
is to find information if you don't know the exact language that the writers
chose to use. For this reason, I think it's important to include search
assistance such as indexes or controlled vocabulary. 

(OK, at this point, you're probably all yawning and saying "yeah, so?"). I'm
wondering if there's any research out there that focuses on this topic - is
full-text search sufficient? Do users who rely on search assistance
experience greater success in finding what they're looking for?  


Thanks for your help,


-- liz

Liz Augustine
(781) 372-5853
Technical Writer, XPG, Rational Software