Implicit information need as explicit problems, help, and behavioral signals

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ipm.2019.102069Get rights and content

Highlights

  • The amount of time spent on previous search results could be an indicator of potential problems in articulation of needs into queries, perceiving useless results, and not getting useful sources in the following search stage in an information search process.

  • While performing social tasks, users mostly searched with an entirely new query, whereas, for cognitive and moderate to high complexity tasks, users used both new and substituted queries as well.

  • From users’ search behaviors, it is possible to predict the potential problem that they are going to face in the future.

  • User’s search behaviors can map an information searcher’s situational need, along with his/her perception of barriers and helps in different stages of an information search process.

  • By combining perceived problem(s) and search behavioral features, it is possible to infer users’ needed help(s) in search with a certain level of accuracy (78%).

Abstract

Information need is one of the most fundamental aspects of information seeking, which traditionally conceptualizes as the initiation phase of an individual’s information seeking behavior. However, the very elusive and inexpressible nature of information need makes it hard to elicit from the information seeker or to extract through an automated process. One approach to understanding how a person realizes and expresses information need is to observe their seeking behaviors, to engage processes with information retrieval systems, and to focus on situated performative actions. Using Dervin’s Sense-Making theory and conceptualization of information need based on existing studies, the work reported here tries to understand and explore the concept of information need from a fresh methodological perspective by examining users’ perceived barriers and desired helps in different stages of information search episodes through the analyses of various implicit and explicit user search behaviors. In a controlled lab study, each participant performed three simulated online information search tasks. Participants’ implicit behaviors were collected through search logs, and explicit feedback was elicited through pre-task and post-task questionnaires. A total of 208 query segments were logged, along with users’ annotations on perceived problems and help. Data collected from the study was analyzed by applying both quantitative and qualitative methods. The findings identified several behaviors – such as the number of bookmarks, query length, number of the unique queries, time spent on search results observed in the previous segment, the current segment, and throughout the session – strongly associated with participants’ perceived barriers and help needed. The findings also showed that it is possible to build accurate predictive models to infer perceived problems of articulation of queries, useless and irrelevant information, and unavailability of information from users’ previous segment, current segment, and whole session behaviors. The findings also demonstrated that by combining perceived problem(s) and search behavioral features, it was possible to infer users’ needed help(s) in search with a certain level of accuracy (78%).

Introduction

Information need is one of the most extensively studied constructs of information seeking behavior (Case, 2012). Existing studies have explored the concept of information need from different perspectives (e.g., Belkin, 1980, Belkin, Oddy, Brooks, 1982a, Belkin, Oddy, Brooks, 1982b, Cole, 2011, Dervin, Nilan, 1986, Kuhlthau, 1991a, Savolainen, 2012, Taylor, 1962, Taylor, 1968, Wilson, 1981), various aspects related to it (e.g., Afzal, 2017, Al-Fedaghi, 2008, Hoenkamp, 2015, Julien, Duggan, 2000, Ruthven, 2019a), information need of individuals or a particular population (e.g., Dutta, 2009, Ikoja-Odongo, Ocholla, 2003), and different theoretical information seeking models related to need such as the reference interview model by Taylor (1968), the ASK model of Belkin, Oddy, Brooks, 1982a, Belkin, Oddy, Brooks, 1982b, sense-making approach of Dervin and Nilan (1986) and Dervin (1992), Bates’ berry-picking model (2002) and so on. However, the very elusive and sometimes verbally inexpressible nature of information need makes it harder to grasp and define (Cole, 2011, Wilson, 1981). Often, what is required to fulfill an information need is not clear to the researchers as well as the individual seeker (Cole, 2011).

Thus, based on existing theoretical models of information behavior, the study we report here has adopted a holistic approach to understand and explore the concept of information need from a fresh methodological perspective. Towards this objective, we examined users’ perceived barriers and desired help at different stages of information search by analyzing various implicit and explicit user search behaviors. This, in turn, allowed us to focus on representing a user’s unexpressed information need in terms of those explicit behavioral signals. We collected explicit feedback from information seekers about their perceived barriers or problems and the help that they sought at that given moment, with an assumption that their information need is strongly connected to those two aspects of information seeking (Bates, 1989, Cole, 2011, Dervin, 1983b, Dervin, Nilan, 1986, Kari, 1998). With that in mind, we planned to investigate the following research questions (RQs) that link the study of behavioral data/signals and problems and help.

  • 1.

    To what extent can the problems or barriers perceived by an individual in different stages of information search be predicted from different search behaviors?

  • 2.

    To what extent can the best help for an individual be predicted from the search behaviors and the perceived barriers/problems at a given moment in the information search process?

To address these research questions, the work reported here explores various characteristics of tasks, information seekers’ implicit behaviors, and explicit feedback in the course of online information search episodes including the problem(s) they face and suggestion for help(s) to address solutions to the potential difficulties in finding information. We focused on the information searching context which is the micro-level of seeking behavior where users interact with IR systems to achieve their goals.

Information need that arises within a person’s mind is the main initiator of information seeking behaviors (Case, 2012). This information need can be innate or external based on the person’s situation (e.g., cognitive, affective, or social), and that situation is the starting point of the information seeking process (Dervin & Nilan, 1986). Therefore, one may argue that an information need cannot be measured or concretely observed. In other words, it cannot be quantified because it is a behavioral and cognitive state of a person, and there is no empirical way to determine if what one is experiencing is a need to know something. However, the current study argues that information need is a cognitive state that is expressly felt and immediately recognizable, and therefore can be observed and measured by observing other expressible physical and cognitive activities such as the problems they face and helps they need to make sense of the problem while seeking information. Thus, one of the key contributions of this work is a new methodology to understand and infer information need by examining the related aspects, such as “problems” and “helps”. This work is an experimental study about a new approach, and this article reports the findings, strengths and weaknesses identified in this approach. Use of such methodological approaches based on problem-help attributes has not been previously explored for investigating information need and thus should provide value to conceptualize and operationalize the construct of information need, especially in the information search context. Furthermore, there has been a move in interactive information retrieval research to examine how task and user context affect their commonly observable seeking behaviors and strategies (e.g., Jiang, He, Allan, 2014, Liu, Cole, Liu, Bierig, Gwizdka, Belkin, Zhang, Zhang, 2010), however, while the perceived problems and helps are a product of these contexts and strategies, the nature of these relationships has mostly been unexplored. Thus, these aspects distinguish our current study from earlier studies which applied various methodological and theoretical approaches to explore the concept of information need. In addition, our approach is also interpretive and focuses on situated sense-making processes during information search episodes to extract a way of identifying information need behind them.

Taking this further, the work reported here shows how to explicate potential current and future problems and preferred help within information search episodes using behavioral data. This knowledge can then be used to provide more personalized recommendations to an information seeker, as well as to preempt potential problems by offering help before the searcher even realizes the need for such help. The rest of this article is organized as follows. Section 2 discusses the research on information need and concepts of problem, help, and other constructs that have been used in our study, such as tasks and behavioral measures to establish the background and introduces a conceptual framework for the current study. Section 3 discusses how we incorporated these constructs into the study design. Sections 4 and 5 describe the methodology, data analysis and the results followed by the discussion of the results and concluding remarks in the subsequent sections.

Section snippets

Background and theoretical frameworks

We begin with a discussion of information need in the online information search context. An information need is an evolving state of mind at a given moment in a sequence of time-space moments in a person’s life within which the person engages in seeking information through interconnected cognitive and behavioral actions. Although it is an abstract state of mind, it is felt and recognizable, and therefore can be observed and measured by observing other expressible physical and cognitive

Implementation of the frameworks in the experimental design

Based on the socio-cognitive construct of information need established by above-mentioned studies, we envision a user’s information need as the perceived inadequacies or a gap in the user’s conceptual state of knowledge, which changes continuously as the user progresses through the information seeking process. When users face a problematic situation and do not have adequate knowledge to solve it, they may have an ill-defined information need which is not clear enough for articulation. They need

Methodology

To address the research gaps and questions discussed above, we designed a controlled laboratory-based user study in a research university environment using a mixed method approach, where participants were asked to perform three search tasks. Participants were additionally asked to report problems faced at various steps in the search process, as well as what would help them at that moment in the process. The main components of the study procedure are detailed in the following subsections.

Data analysis and results

Data collected through the user study was analyzed using both descriptive and inferential methods. The unit of analysis was the problem and help situation at a given query segment when a participant was about to formulate a query. Operationally, the problem-help situation began when a user who was engaged in a information-searching task encountered a problem that prevented him or her from continuing the search task and marked the problem(s) and desired help(s) in the questionnaire, formulated a

Discussion and implications

This study explores the connection between users’ implicit and explicit searching behaviors, the constraints and barriers people perceived while looking for information online, and preferred help to mitigate those barriers in different stages of an information search episode. From the data analysis, some interesting observations emerge. Some of the observations are evident in existing studies and are subject to common sense. However, some subtle observations additionally emerged from the

Conclusions

Information need is a widely researched concept within information science. However, despite its importance, there is still a lack of understanding of what information need is and what its dimensions are. Therefore, there is a need to go beyond the approaches used thus far, especially to conceptualize as well as operationalize the construct of information need. The purpose of this study is to propose a new methodology to examine the concept of information need in different stages of the

Acknowledgments

The study reported here was funded by the NSF grant #IIS-1717488. Thus, we would like to acknowledge the NSF for their support, our study participants for their participation, and the anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments and suggestions.

References (78)

  • R. Savolainen

    Approaches to socio-cultural barriers to information seeking

    Library & Information Science Research

    (2016)
  • S. Talja et al.

    The problem with problematic situations: Differences between practices, tasks, and situations as units of analysis

    Library and Information Science Research

    (2015)
  • P. Vakkari

    Task complexity, problem structure and information actions: Integrating studies on information seeking and retrieval

    Information Processing & Management

    (1999)
  • R.W. White et al.

    An implicit feedback approach for interactive information retrieval

    Information Processing & Management

    (2006)
  • W. Afzal

    A proposed methodology for the conceptualization, operationalization, and empirical validation of the concept of information need.

    Information Research: An International Electronic Journal

    (2017)
  • S.S. Al-Fedaghi

    Integration of information needs and seeking

    2008 IEEE International conference on information reuse and integration, IEEE IRI-2008

    (2008)
  • M.J. Bates

    The design of browsing and berrypicking techniques for the online search interface

    Online Review

    (1989)
  • M.J. Bates

    Toward an integrated model of information seeking and searching

    The New Review of Information Behaviour Research

    (2002)
  • N.J. Belkin

    Anomalous states of knowledge as a basis for information retrieval

    Canadian Journal of Information Science

    (1980)
  • N.J. Belkin et al.

    ASK for information retrieval: Part I. Background and theory

    Journal of Documentation

    (1982)
  • N.J. Belkin et al.

    ASK for information retrieval: Part II. Results of a design study

    Journal of Documentation

    (1982)
  • N.J. Belkin et al.

    Interaction in information systems: A review of research from document retrieval to knowledge-based systems

    Library and Information Research Report

    (1985)
  • D.J. Bell et al.

    Searchers assessments of task complexity for web searching

    European conference on information retrieval

    (2004)
  • P. Borlund

    The iir evaluation model: a framework for evaluation of interactive information retrieval systems

    Information Research. An International Electronic Journal

    (2003)
  • P. Borlund

    A study of the use of simulated work task situations in interactive information retrieval evaluations: A meta-evaluation

    Journal of Documentation

    (2016)
  • P. Borlund et al.

    The development of a method for the evaluation of interactive information retrieval systems

    Journal of Documentation

    (1997)
  • A. Broder

    A taxonomy of web search

    ACM SIGIR Forum

    (2002)
  • K. Byström

    Information and information sources in tasks of varying complexity

    Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology

    (2002)
  • R. Capra et al.

    The effects of manipulating task determinability on search behaviors and outcomes

    The 41st international ACM SIGIR conference on research & development in information retrieval

    (2018)
  • Looking for information: A survey of research on information seeking, needs, and behavior

  • C. Cole

    A theory of information need for information retrieval that connects information to knowledge

    Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology

    (2011)
  • C. Cole et al.

    Investigating the anomalous states of knowledge hypothesis in a real-life problem situation: A study of history and psychology undergraduates seeking information for a course essay

    Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology

    (2005)
  • B. Dervin

    Strategies for dealing with human information needs: Information or communication?

    Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media

    (1976)
  • B. Dervin

    Information as a user construct: The relevance of perceived information needs to synthesis and interpretation

  • B. Dervin

    An overview of sense-making research: Concepts, methods, and results to date

    (1983)
  • B. Dervin

    From the mind’s eye of the user: The sense-making qualitative-quantitative methodology

  • B. Dervin et al.

    Sense-making methodology reader: Selected writings of Brenda Dervin

    (2003)
  • B. Dervin et al.

    Information needs and uses

  • S.T. Dumais et al.

    The trec interactive tracks: Putting the user into search

    TREC: Experiment and Evaluation in Information Retrieval

    (2005)
  • Cited by (22)

    • Selection bias mitigation in recommender system using uninteresting items based on temporal visibility

      2023, Expert Systems with Applications
      Citation Excerpt :

      However, compared with explicit feedback, implicit feedback is not clear about the expression of user preferences and cannot express the degree of preferences (Xue et al., 2017). In other words, the method based on implicit feedback can not guarantee that users have high post-use preference for recommended items (Sarkar, Mitsui, Liu, & Shah, 2020). Whether the pre-use preference expressed by implicit feedback can be applied to explicit feedback to alleviate selection bias is worth discussing.

    • Visualization of Emergency Needs Posted on Social Media by Metaphor Map

      2021, Data and Information Management
      Citation Excerpt :

      At present, many studies have explored how to apply social media in emergency management from different perspectives, including social network structure analysis, short text emotion analysis, semantic perception, and topic evolution analysis. Social media theme analysis is a common technology for studying information dissemination and emergency response, which can be used to formulate relevant emergency strategies (Xu et al., 2019) and help identify and analyze behavior and information characteristics of the public (Sarkar et al., 2020). For example, during an emergency response, the information disseminated on social networks may contain rumors, false or true but outdated information (Zhao et al., 2014), and emergency managers can use rumor detection mechanisms to help them identify false information.

    • Leader information seeking, team performance and team innovation: Examining the roles of team reflexivity and cooperative outcome interdependence

      2020, Information Processing and Management
      Citation Excerpt :

      This may affect team members’ behaviors and team outcomes. Although information seeking can be instrumental for leadership development and career advancement (Chun, Lee & Sosik, 2018), studies on information seeking in the workplace have mainly focused on individual or team information seeking (e.g., Al-Samarraie, Eldenfria & Dawoud, 2017; Hertzum, 2017; Hertzum & Simonsen, 2019; Johnson, 2014; Sarkar, Mitsui, Liu & Shah, 2019; Shah, 2014). Relatively little research has examined leaders’ information seeking from their subordinates (Ashford et al., 2003; Stoker, Grutterink & Kolk, 2012).

    • Examination of Information Problem Decomposition Strategies: A New Perspective for Understanding Users' Information Problems in Search as Learning

      2023, SIGIR-AP 2023 - Annual International ACM SIGIR Conference on Research and Development in Information Retrieval in the Asia Pacific Region
    View all citing articles on Scopus
    View full text