What is Information Seeking Behavior?
The most simple definition of information seeking behavior is the act of seeking information in order to answer a specific query. As a former librarian, information seeking behavior was a topic I was well-versed in before making the switch to development last year. As librarians, we considered the context of an information need, the outside factors that can influence how a user searches for information, and how long/complex the action will be before they find meaningful information, in order to assist library users with research, design and build database schema and vocabulary design (library speak for how the keywords that will find an article for you in that huge university database actually find you something useful).
But I think that developers can apply this approach as well, as part of an empathetic, holistic view of understanding how a user will interact with the applications that we build. Obviously a lot of this is considered if your team is lucky enough to have a UX or UI designer, but if you're freelancing or part of a small team, you may not have that luxury and understanding of how a user navigates an interface to obtain the information they seek may not quite work the way you would expect.
Library Science folks have been studying this for decades
Because users at libraries have been seeking information long before the advent of the internet and search engines, library scientists have been researching how users seek information since at least the 1960's. Any fellow olds like me remember trying to find the book you need by browsing a card catalog? The science of information seeking behavior played a huge role on how the keywords and subject headings were determined that were printed on those little cards.
One of the main researchers most librarians refer to in the collective history of information seeking behavior research is Thomas D. Wilson and Wilson's model, first presented in 1971, which evolved over time, with the most notable revisions in the mid-90's (hello, technology). The gist is that a user's information-seeking needed to be viewed within context, taking into an account that user's physiological, cognitive, or affective needs, and that their information seeking behavior can be altered by intermediary systems (like the user interface you're developing) and technology. Besides this, not all searches are created equal; some are passive, some are active, some are ongoing.
Besides Wilson's model, Robert S. Taylor's 1968 article discussed the idea of question-negotiation in information seeking behaviors, explaining that users fulfill their information need in a four step process:
1) The visceral need, which is what they are actually seeking
2) The conscious need, which is what they tell themselves they are seeking
3) The formalized need, which they verbally express (usually to a librarian), but this can also be what they type into a search bar
4) The compromised need, which is making their question suitable for the information system they are using to answer their question, like when they type in their query and don't get a hit that seems relevant to them
Taylor's model is very user-centered, and implies that the process is one of the user negotiating with the information system in order to obtain the information they seek.
How does this work outside of a college library?
Besides the overarching context of the user and their information need, there are also different task types that could impact how complex the process is from beginning to end. In a recent article by Feifei Liu of the Nielson Norman Group, information seeking behavior shifts fully to the online world, breaking down information needs into three tasks:
1) Aquire, wherein a user is looking for a fact, like a business' phone number or a set of instructions. This can be accomplished usually with a basic search query and minimal clicks.
2) Compare/Choose, which describes a user evaluating multiple products or information sources, like comparing reviews of an item or evaluating similar products side by side.
3) Understand, which usually takes a bit more research, and involves a user gaining understanding of a topic, like researching what they need to do to prepare for adopting a new puppy. At the same time, a user will be evaluating whether or not the information they find is trustworthy.
What does all this mean for my interface, again?
Consider how your interface can meet the possible needs of the user, and develop and design the interface with the mindfulness of what task the tool you are developing is going to help the user with.
Are you building a page that a user would visit to answer a quick factual question? Keep it simple. Don't make the user hunt for the information they need, because not being able to find it in a short enough time that matches the ease of their task will lead to that whole negotiation situation which can result in them trying to find the info from someplace else. Think about how font color and weight can make it clear to the user that they found what they were looking for.
Maybe you're developing an interface for users to compare different options of a subscription service. Keep in mind then how you can bold important information and think about how their eye is traveling throughout the component that allows for easy comparison. Keep the information consistent across the components that show the comparison so that the user doesn't have to navigate away or continue searching and clicking to compare a specific feature that they care about.
When developing interfaces that contain content users would turn to for deeper understanding, think about how you are organizing the content so that it's clean and clear and easy on the user's eyes. This type of information need can be the most confusing for people, as evaluating information is a skill that develops over time, so weighing down the page with ads mixed in with expert content can have a negative impact on the overall experience. How can they determine if content is trustworthy if the page is littered with ads?
Overall, user interface development wins when we develop from a place of empathy for our users. The interface may be beautiful, it may have some cool CSS tricks, but does it do its ultimate job which is to help the user find what they need? I like to think about interfaces bringing the user a sense of joy, and I think joy can be derived from it taking way fewer clicks, less time wasted hunting, to find the information we seek.
Cover image photo by Markus Winkler on Unsplash
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