Alexander Johannesen wrote:
>
> I've gotten good feedback from both here, private and within the
> organisation, so I'll go ahead and create a simple proposal here to
> get things started. Let me state the goal of this ;
>
> - give us all free, library focused (first will be OPAC, of course)
> well-crafted and directed user surveys to guide us
> - docs about simple and cheap usability measures one can do to
> improve ourselves
It may turn out much harder than it appears to be on the surface.
There are at least 72 theories of information behaviour, all outlined
in a hefty volume:
Theories of Information Behavior / Ed. by Karen E. Fisher ...
Information Today Inc., 2005. - 431 p.
ISBN 1-57387-230-X
Seems as if no two people have a lot in common when it comes to
information seeking, and one and the same person behaves differently
from one occasion to the next (when coming along with a different
type of question).
One of the topics covered is "library anxiety". (It may be one of those
syndromes in search of an illness.)
On the topic of "Browsing", one reads that "it is an important part of
human information behavior" but "... its nature is not well understood".
"Principle of least effort" is a well-worn theory, but "it tends to
reduce the complexity of human behavior into one explanation that
igonres context and individual differences."
Even "Women's ways of knowing" is looked at for its "relevance to system
design". to no tangible results.
Good luck, anyhow. This is not meant to discourage.
B. Eversberg
Received on Tue Jun 27 2006 - 10:29:16 EDT