Paper Info
Title
Web search behavior of Internet experts and newbies
Abstract
Searching for relevant information on the World Wide Web is often a laborious and frustrating task for casual and experienced users. To help improve searching on the Web based on a better understanding of user characteristics, we investigate what types of knowledge are relevant for Web-based information seeking, and which knowledge structures and strategies are involved. Two experimental studies are presented, which address these questions from different angles and with different methodologies. In the first experiment, 12 established Internet experts are first interviewed about search strategies and then perform a series of realistic search tasks on the World Wide Web. From this study a model of information seeking on the World Wide Web is derived and then tested in a second study. In the second experiment two types of potentially relevant types of knowledge are compared directly. Effects of Web experience and domain-specific background knowledge are investigated with a series of search tasks in an economics-related domain (introduction of the Euro currency). We find differential and combined effects of both Web experience and domain knowledge: while successful search performance requires the combination of the two types of expertise, specific strategies directly related to Web experience or domain knowledge can be identified.
Year
DOI
Venue
2000
10.1016/S1389-1286(00)00031-1
Computer Networks
Keywords
Field
DocType
Expertise,Information retrieval,Internet search engines,Logfile analysis
Web design,Web development,Data mining,World Wide Web,Web intelligence,Computer science,Web standards,Semantic Web,Web modeling,Web navigation,Social Semantic Web
Journal
Volume
Issue
ISSN
33
1-6
Computer Networks
Citations 
PageRank 
References 
293
21.93
7
Authors
2
Search Limit
100293
Name
Order
Citations
PageRank
Christoph Hölscher141843.88
Gerhard Strube238946.10