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A Study of User Performance and Attitudes with Information Retrieval Interfaces

This article reports on a project undertaken to compare the behavior of two types of users with two types of information retrieval interfaces. The user types were search process specialists and subject matter domain specialists with no prior online database search experience. The interfaces were native DIALOG, which uses a procedural language, and OAK, a largely menu-based, hence nonprocedural language interface communicating with DIALOG. Three types of data were recorded : logs automatically recorded by computer monitoring of all searches, results of structured interviews with subjects at the time of the searches, and results of focus group discussions after all project tasks were completed. The type of user was determined by a combination of prior training, objective in searching, and subject domain knowledge. Our results show that the type of interface does affect performance and that users adapt their behavior to interfaces differently. Different combinations of search experience and domain knowledge will lead to different behavior in use of an information retrieval system. Different kinds of users can best be served with different kinds of interfaces.