Types of Help‐seeking situations for novice users of digital libraries: A preliminary study

Abstract

AbstractThe Help‐seeking situation is characterized by a person, who is engaged in the process of information seeking with an IR system in order to achieve his/her tasks/goals, and finds him/herself needing some sort of help in that process. To date, there has been little empirical research investigating the specific types of Help‐seeking situations that lead users to look for help. This paper reports the results of a preliminary study, derived from an ongoing large scale research project focusing on the identification of different types of Help‐seeking situations, along with types of help features used and their related problems. Seventeen subjects representing the general public in Milwaukee and New York City sites were selected for this study. Based on the analysis of pre and post questionnaires, think aloud data and transaction logs, the results present 9 types of Help‐seeking situations related to problems in the area of: domain knowledge, system knowledge, information retrieval knowledge, evaluation of results, and collections of digital libraries. Implications for the design of more effective interactive Help mechanisms are also discussed.