Competency J

Introduction

Human beings are complex, often erratic creatures. We make decisions that we would have a hard time explaining, and that might even run counter to what we would consider our goals—if we can even articulate what those goals are. Still, many people have put great effort into trying to understand and describe our behavior. This is definitely true when it comes to information seeking, as evidenced by the number of theories researchers have formulated attempting to explain why and how people engage in this activity.

Competency J tells me that I should have knowledge of some of these models because if I understand an information seeker’s motivations, actions, and states of mind at different points in their journey, I have a better chance of designing useful services for them and having successful interactions with them as I assist them directly or help them navigate information retrieval (IR) systems to find the information they want or need. Here I describe four models I encountered in my classes.

Bates – Berrypicking

Bates’s (1989) model takes its name from an analogy comparing information-seeking behavior to “picking huckleberries or blueberries in the forest. The berries are scattered on the bushes; they do not come in bunches. One must pick them one at a time” (p. 410). Her model describes a user’s journey through the information-seeking process as one that is linear, but that does not follow a straight line. Rather, the path shifts as the user’s ideas and thinking about their search evolve.

Central to her model are four “areas”: the evolving nature of the query, the piecemeal nature of the search process, the wide variety of search techniques the user employs, and the range of domains or environments where user finds sources (pp. 409, 421). She uses these areas to contrast her model with the “classic” model of IR. In particular, her model’s evolutionary view of the search process diverges from the classic model’s treatment of the user’s query as an isolated thing that the user forms at the outset of the process and that remains unchanged throughout (p. 409).

Furthermore, the second area, concerning the nature of the search process, posits that the process does not end with just one piece of information or set of search results the way the classic model does, but rather that the user discovers different resources and pieces of information along the way that collectively form the resolution. This is Bates’s model’s eponymous “berrypicking.” These individual, berry-picked pieces of information are primarily what cause the user to evolve their thinking about and approach to their problem throughout the process.

Bates (1989) designed her model to place a greater emphasis on user interest, which she felt was missing from the classic IR model (p. 408). Her motivation was to replace a model that she felt was responsible for “limit[ing] our creativity in developing IR systems that really meet user needs and preferences” (p. 409). Hers, she believed, would represent user searches more realistically, and as a consequence, would enable information professionals to build better IR interfaces and functionality for more successful user-system interactions.

Kuhlthau – Information Search Process (ISP)

Kuhlthau developed her ISP model in 1991 and 1993 to address what she saw as a gap in library and information science research: i.e., past studies focused on the information system itself rather than on the information seeker’s behaviors, and more specifically, the user’s “classic triad of thoughts, actions, and feelings central to any constructive process” (2009, p. 264). Her theory approaches information-seeking behavior from the seeker’s point of view and breaks down their information journey into six stages: task initiation, selection, exploration, focus formulation, collection, and presentation. To these stages she applies the classic triad, which she rebrands as affective, cognitive, and physical “realms of experience” (p. 264).

As an individual information seeker makes their way from initiation to presentation, they engage in new actions and experience new feelings and thoughts. Kuhlthau (2009) theorized new affective realms of experience at every stage—e.g., uncertainty during initiation; confusion, frustration, and doubt during exploration; and either satisfaction or disappointment during presentation—while the cognitive and physical could span multiple stages—e.g., vague thoughts from initiation through exploration, and exploring actions from selection through collection (p. 265). All of these realms of experience are closely tied to one another, with the affective and cognitive being particularly correlated. For example, Kuhlthau (2009) wrote, “the affective symptoms of uncertainty, confusion, and frustration prevalent in the early stages are associated with vague, unclear thoughts about a topic or problem” (p. 264).

Kuhlthau’s (2009) goal was to help information professionals support the information seeker, and to that end, she described “zones of intervention” (p. 268) to identify when it would be best to lend aid or advice to the information seeker to help them through their current ISP stage.

Wilson – Uncertainty Resolution

Like Kuhlthau, Wilson believed that uncertainty is the main motivator for the information seeking process, and that the cause of that uncertainty is a lack of or gap in understanding that results in a problem the person is trying to solve. In his 1999 model he drew upon the Kuhlthau’s and others’ as well as his own previous information-seeking models, but differentiated it by focusing on information search behavior, which he considered to be a subset of information-seeking behavior.

For Wilson, information search has to do with how people interact with IR systems and other digital systems, while information-seeking is more generally concerned with the ways people find and access resources (p. 263). He identifies four stages that people go through in their quest to move from uncertainty to more certainty:

• • problem identification: figuring out the type of problem

  • problem definition: describing what the problem is

  • problem resolution: deciding how to find the resolution

  • solution statement: the answer to or proposed course for dealing with the problem, and not a guaranteed stage

Wilson hypothesized that people did not move through these stages in a straight line; rather, if they failed in one stage, they might enter a “feedback loop” (p. 266), reverting to the preceding stage for more insights.

Dervin – Sense-Making Theory

Dervin (1983) articulated her model in a conference paper as a culmination of what she called an “8-year programmatic effort to study how people construct sense of their worlds and, in particular, how they construct information needs and uses for information in the process of sense-making.” Two of the central concepts of this model are the gap and the bridge. The user encounters a situation where they recognize and then define a gap in knowledge. This gap in knowledge is or becomes their information need, and on the other side of the gap is the outcome, which is a situation where they obtain information that makes sense to them. That is, the information is the sense, rather than its own object independent of the user. The user bridges the gap and arrives at that sense by moving through time and space—though only metaphorically, for, as Dervin (1998) wrote, “While we can usefully assume that life is lived in a linear time-space, in fact our results say that sense making and sense unmaking are not” (p. 39).

According to Wilson (1999), while Kuhlthau’s model represents an “active search mode of information-seeking behaviour” (p. 257), Dervin’s model incorporates aspects of behaviors outside that realm, such as “the context in which information needs arise” (p. 257). Despite this broader conception, the model is still useful for giving information professionals actionable insights into their patrons’ behaviors. Indeed, Dervin (1998) expressed that “the Sensemaking metaphor provides guidance for thinking about people, talking to them, asking questions of them and designing systems to serve them” (p. 39).

Application

In my coursework I learned that for the information professional, the value of these theoretical models is this guidance that Dervin spoke of. That is, the information professional must take the insights these models give into human behavior and put them into practice to connect people with the information they seek. These models help the information professional build empathy with the user by elucidating their motivations and their state of mind at different stages in their information-seeking journey. This allows the professional to provide the right assistance at the right time, reducing confusion and uncertainty and improving results and confidence in the outcome.

My classes taught me that as an information professional, it is necessary to conduct an interview with the information seeker to identify their stage in the journey. For instance, if they are still trying to define their problem, then it is too early to recommend resources to them. An attempt to do so would mean either picking resources that very likely wouldn’t actually match their needs, or recommending many resources to cover different potential needs, resulting in information overload. Either option would result in frustration and increased uncertainty for the information seeker.

Conclusion

Information-seeking behavior is not a monolithic thing but a vast realm that requires open thinking and lots of research on the part of the information professional. That includes knowing the various models and theories that explain how people interact with information, researching and understanding the needs and behaviors of particular information communities, and being able to connect the two—to apply the models to provide better respond to user needs.

In particular, I learned through my coursework that understanding where the user is in their information-seeking journey, and their corresponding motivations and state of mind, can help me tailor my approach to providing them aid. For instance, as Kuhlthau (2009) suggested, “If uncertainty is viewed as a sign of the beginning of learning and creativity, the goal of library and information services shifts from reducing uncertainty to supporting the user’s constructive process” (p. 268). This tailored approach will allow me to understand the information seeker as an individual with specific wants and needs, and thus to design better systems for them and provide them with better services.

References

Aber, S. E. W., & Aber, J. W. (2017). Map librarianship: A guide to geoliteracy, map and GIS resources and services. Elsevier.

Bates, M. J. (1989). The design of browsing and berrypicking techniques for the online search interface. On-Line Review, 13(5), 407–424. https://doi.org/10.1108/eb024320

Dervin, B. (1983, May). An overview of sense-making research: Concepts, methods and results to date [Paper presentation]. International Communication Association Annual Meeting, Dallas, TX. https://faculty.washington.edu/wpratt/MEBI598/Methods/An%20Overview%20of%20Sense-Making%20Research%201983a.htm

Dervin, B. (1998, December). Sense-making theory and practice: An overview of user interests in knowledge seeking and use. Journal of Knowledge Management, 2(2), 36–46. https://doi.org/10.1108/13673279810249369

Fisher, K. E., & Bishop, A. P. (2015). Information communities: Defining the focus of information service. In S. Hirsh (Ed.), Information services today: An introduction (pp. 20–26). https://infocom.hyperlib.sjsu.edu/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/Information_Services_Today_An_Introduction_-_3_Information_Communities.pdf

Kuhlthau, C. C. (2009). Information search process (ISP) model. In V. M. Tucker (Ed.). Information retrieval system design: Principles & practice (6th ed., pp. 262–269). https://doi.org/10.1081/E-ELIS3-120043229

Nahl, D. (2009). User-centered revolution: 1970-1995 [ELIS Classic]. In V. M. Tucker (Ed.). Information retrieval system design: Principles & practice (6th ed., pp. 270–305). https://doi.org/10.1081/E-ELIS3-120044792

Wilson, T. D. (1999). Models in information behaviour research. Journal of Documentation, 55(3), 249–270. https://doi.org/10.1108/EUM0000000007145