Abstract To date, there has been little empirical research investigating the specific types of help‐seeking situations that arise when people interact with information in new searching environments such as digital libraries. This article reports the results of a project focusing on the identification of different types of help‐seeking situations, along with types of factors that precipitate them among searchers of two different digital libraries. Participants (N = 120) representing the general public in Milwaukee and New York City were selected for this study. Based on the analysis of multiple sources of data, the authors identify 15 types of help‐seeking situations among this sample of novice digital library users. These situations are related to the searching activities involved in getting started, identifying relevant digital collections, browsing for information, constructing search statements, refining searches, monitoring searches, and evaluating results. Multiple factors that determine the occurrences of each type of help‐seeking situation also are identified. The article concludes with a model that represents user, system, task, and interaction outcome as codeterminates in the formation of help‐seeking situations, and presents the theoretical and practical implications of the study results.

Query length in best-match information retrieval (IR) systems is well known to be positively related to effectiveness in the IR task, when measured in experimental, non-interactive environments. However, in operational, interactive IR systems, query length is quite typically very short, on the order of two to three words. We report on a study which tested the effectiveness of a particular query elicitation technique in increasing initial searcher query length, and which tested the effectiveness of queries elicited using this technique, and the relationship in general between query length and search effectiveness in interactive IR. Results show that the specific technique results in longer queries than a standard query elicitation technique, that this technique is indeed usable, that the technique results in increased user satisfaction with the search, and that query length is positively correlated with user satisfaction with the search.

This field experiment investigates individual, structural and social influences on the use of two video telephone systems. One system flourished, while an equivalent system died. We use a time series design and multiple data sources to test media richness theory, critical mass theory, and social influence theories about new media use. Results show that the fit between tasks and features of the communications medium influences use to a degree, but cannot explain why only one system survived. Critical mass—the numbers of people one can reach on a system—and social influence—the norms that grow up around a new medium—can explain this phenomenon.

Five independently generated Boolean query formulations for ten different TREC topics were produced by ten different expert online searchers. These different formulations were grouped, and the groups, and combinations of them, were used as searches against the TREC test collection, using the INQUERY probabilistic inference network retrieval engine. Results show that progressive combination of query formulations leads to progressively improving retrieval performance. Results were compared against the performance of INQUERY natural language based queries, and in combination with them. The issue of recall as a performance measure in large databases was raised, since overlap between the searches conducted in this study, and the TREC-1 searches, was smaller than expected.

This paper reviews the design and implementation of several video telephony systems at Bellcore as a case study in iterative design.In contrast to single user compuer applications, communication systems consists of both the interconnection technology and the people who are interconnected.From a user's point of view, the capabilities provided by the system, the rules for its use, and its reaction to their actions depend jointly on what its developers implemented and how other users behave.This fact has wide-ranging implications for system design, use, and evaluation.In reviewing our design experience, we identify four dilemmas for iterative design that flow from the inherently social nature of communication systems.We conclude with methodological and theoretical suggestions to supplement conventional iterative design principles as applied to communications systems.