Identifying information seeking behaviours of low and high literacy users: combined cognitive task analysis.

Motivation – According to the UK’s National Skills for Life survey carried out in 2003, 16% or equivalent to 5.2 million of the UK population presented low levels of literacy (Williams, et al. 2003). In this study we investigate the differences in information seeking behaviours between low and high literacy users of an
on-line social service system. Research approach – Ten volunteers participated in the study. Using the National Skills for Life Survey, five were classified as high literacy; five as low literacy. All participants were asked to think-aloud whilst carrying out the information search using the “Adviceguide” website. The four tasks were of varying difficulty; easy, medium and difficult. Observations, video recording, and a semi structured interview technique that uses cognitive probes were used. The qualitative data were transcribed and analysed using Strauss and Corbin’s (1998) Grounded Theory and Wong and
Blandford (2002) Emergent Themes Analysis approach. Findings/Design – We identified eight themes or
characteristics from this study; Verification, Reading, Recovery, Trajectories, Abandon, Focus, Satisfied,
and Perception. Results showed that low and high literacy users demonstrated critically different characteristics. Take away message – To better support the low and high literacy users with information seeking, we plan to look at information seeking behaviour models as theoretical lenses to analyse their behaviour from the identified characteristics (Makri, Blandford & Cox, 2008). The
behaviour models will better inform the development of interface design for low and high literacy users.

NDM9, the 9th international conference on naturalistic decision making. London, UK, June 2009.