Information Seeking & Processing and Use

As students established a context of information need, every student moved straight to the seeking part of the model ignoring all the other elements of the model. Students moved back, in an iterative manor, to the other parts of the model once the context of need was clear and matched to a seeking strategy.

All students initially set out an active search in the class exercises (i.e., find a time, find and update something, find and delete something), no students considered ongoing, passive search or attention. Once students modelled their active searches, they realized that there are other possibilities, for example, an active search could be also something that was ongoing. Assessing the spread of codes in Table 5.5, seeking was very high with the first formative session noting 42 out 184 instances. As they modelled searches students

reflected upon their initial searching strategy and in most cases added more detail, so again this was popular discussion point with 23 out 55 instances. As their search strategy became established discussion around the search tailed off noting 4 out of 96 instances.

Table 5.5: Formative Session Sub-Categories – Information Seeking Processing/Use

Formative Session

Breakdown of the most popular instance (emerging sub categories) Member Checked

Session 1 Seeking approaches – needs clarity to the types of seeking 20

Session 1 Multiple seeking and searching needed for a test 20

Session 1 Passive Attention to Seeking Behaviour – what? 2

Session 1 Occurrence Sub Total (Info Seek) 42

Session 2 Breaking GOMS down to support Information Seeking 5

Session 2 Matching GOMS to scenario activity (Use) 10

Session 2 Choosing between GOMS elements (Use) 8

Session 2 Occurrence Sub Total (Info Seek) 23 Worry about different seeking strategies - than expected 4

120

Session 3

Session 3 Occurrence Sub Total (Info Seek) 4

Total Information Seeking & Processing and Use 69

The introduction of the model exposed students to all the search components and it soon became apparent that context of information need activity and seeking were closely interlinked. This relationship between seeking and need created an air of confusion. Students found it difficult to separate these two parts of the model and they wanted to “clarity between a participants need for information, which then created a call to seek for that information” a point that created 20 instances and say these as the same thing. To help differentiate between these two very important elements the researcher discussed the possibility of multiple searches and asked the group to think about a range of seeking strategies, the following example was used.

“A test participant passively looks for information on the web and a message appears in the form of a text message. The text is from another student asking for help about a module. So, this passive seeking activity turns active and now requires the student to find module information and rely to the text with a hyperlink to the friend.”

This example establishes a context of need something that has a setting and environment and within this context there is a seeking activity, initially passive moving to active search. This example helped to support the sub-code “multiple seeking and searching” where 20 out of the 42 instances needed clarification regarding the number of seeking activities, which build into a contextual need activity. Examples like this opened up more questions especially around the way Wilson (1997) had worded searches, students were uncertain about the names used and what these meant in their research examples like this put seeking into a mobile context.

As the discussions evolved around a context of need having multiple searches students kept returning to the meaning behind the search notably, passive search and passive attention. All the students appreciated active and possible ongoing searchers however, “seeking approaches” kept reappearing 20 out of the 42 instances need more examples to

contextualize the different seeking approach and how this fits within a mobile context. Each example returned to the point that seeking approaches build upon the contextual need activities.

121

In the second formative session, which modelled the searches all the students altered and refined their seeking practices. Modelling mapped out interaction and searches became more elaborate. Students began to realize that tests do not always consist of a single active search; test participants could take a number of pathways so “Breaking GOMS down to support seeking” acknowledged a level of uncertainty about the detail needed. Students needed to model all the possible seeking strategies, for example:

“A contact search could use global navigation or a text link within the footer to

retrieve the same information, but which is the preferred and most efficient pathway?”

Students need to model both pathways and compare the results. Students also highlighted “Matching GOMS to the scenario activity” where 10 out of the 23 students raised this for discussion. The researcher noted and used examples to articulate this by explain that:

1. Each scenario has a goal, a user goal (or context of need activity) and to fulfil this need,

2. Operators are available to accomplish the goal (the tap, swipe, page movement), 3. A test participant could follow a number of pathways to reach that goal - methods (or

seeking approaches),

4. Selection rules dictate what happens when a user has chosen a method or pathway to follow.

This example clarified the GOMS which information the scenario activity and as the

discussion defined clearly the difference between operators and selectors, which caused a lot of debate.

Finally, there was a discussion around “worrying about a seeking strategy that is different to what was expected”, this point was turned into a real positive discussion that helped to galvanize the students field experiments. If a test participant does something unexpected this could open up new avenues for research and could influence the design and interaction of the application. The researcher concluded that this is a fundamental part of research which will inform practice and help support recommendations.

122