"What Do Users Want?"

Navigation: Main page

Author: Bates, Mary Ellen mbates@BatesInfo.com

Sigmund Freud was apparently mystified by the question, "What do women want?" We information professionals sometimes find ourselves equally perplexed when we try to figure out what our clients/patrons/users want (although at least we don't have to delve quite as deeply into their psyches).

Several recent studies of Internet users--and that means "regular" users, not professional searchers--found that some stereotypes of the proverbial end user no longer apply.

According to one study from the Pew Internet & American Life Project [www.pewinternet.org], three-quarters of Internet users search the Web for information on products and services. In fact, among people who have access to a high-speed Net connection, over 10 percent go to the Web daily to find do-it-yourself information (this includes everything from computer repair to medical advice--hopefully not do-it-yourself surgery!--and financial advice). Interestingly, people with college degrees were more likely to look for how-to information than those with a high school degree or less.

Where do they go for information? Alexa, which tracks Web traffic through its toolbar, ranks About.com, Reference.com, and Wikipedia among the top sites visited. Think what you will about the reliability of these sites, I optimistically believe that most users will eventually find reliable information through these portal sites. What this also suggests to me is that, while users are becoming more comfortable with using tools beyond Google, they still want resources that are easy-to-use and broad-based. In a sense, some of these basic look-up sites are taking the place of the ready-reference librarian -- and that's OK, as long as we can focus on catching users' attention when they need to get more in-depth information than they could find on a basic how-to Web site.

Another Pew Project study found that almost half of Internet users are not loyal to a single search engine--so much for the myth that most people depend solely on Google for searching the Web. And over 90 percent of Internet users are either "confident" or "very confident" in their searching abilities. (Of course, given an IDC study, which found that at least half of Web searches are not successful, one is tempted to be a bit skeptical about users' ability to evaluate their personal search skills.) Unfortunately, the study also found that most people do not understand the distinction between organic search results and "sponsored" links. The lesson for information professionals? Our role as information trainers isn't nearly over, but we have to remember to present our training opportunities as "Advanced Web Research" in acknowledgment of our users' self-assessment as skilled Web searchers.

I have been surprised when giving workshops to information professionals on Web research that I still get people asking me to explain what a blog is. While not all librarians have embraced blogs--or even see the value of blog content--it astonishes me when I discover people unfamiliar with the concept. One of the Pew studies reported that over a quarter of all Internet users read blogs, although two-thirds of users are not sure what a blog is. What this suggests to me is that once people learn about blogs, they read them. As with Web searching, this is a continuing opportunity for information professionals to both introduce our user communities to blogs and point them to relevant blogs.

But what I found most intriguing was the number of Internet users who have downloaded podcasts. Almost a third of the people who own iPods or other MP3 players have listened to podcasts. While this is still only about a tenth of all Internet users, the Pew study estimated that it adds up to 6 million people in the U.S. downloading podcasts. Given how new this technology is, and that it requires both a familiarity with audio files and the tools to locate podcasts, this suggests that it's a technology that fills an information need. Fortunately, it also offers tremendous opportunities for librarians and information professionals. Not only can we identify sources for podcasts, but we can build podcast blogs for our own client bases, with speeches of the head people within our organization, interviews with analysts or other thought-leaders within our industry, and local news events of interest to our users. In fact, we can create our own podcasts with interviews of the movers and shakers within our environment--local politicians, an author in town for a book tour, or an opinion leader important to our organization.

Information professionals have always been in the forefront of information search and retrieval. Now, it appears that our end users are fast at our heels, at least when it comes to new Web resources.

~~~~~~~~

By Mary Ellen Bates

Mary Ellen Bates [www.BatesInfo.com] is not, according to the Pew Internet Project, a typical Internet user.