Information seeking

Definition

Information seeking covers the activities through which a person recognizes a need for information, looks for it and judges whether it has been met. Information foraging theory models this behavior as the pursuit of valuable information at the lowest cost. Information scent is the reader’s estimate, from cues such as link texts and headings, of whether a path leads to the needed information. Scanning is selective reading in which the eyes move over a page in search of relevant words, headings or figures.

Historical development

Research on job-related reading in the 1970s, associated with Thomas Sticht and colleagues, distinguished reading to do from reading to learn. John M. Carroll and Mary Beth Rosson (1987) described the paradox of the active user: users start acting before they have read enough to act efficiently, and Carroll (1990) built minimalism on this observation. Marcia Bates (1989) described “berrypicking”, searching in which the query evolves as information is found. Kevin Lynch’s study of urban wayfinding (1960) was later used as an analogy for orientation in information spaces. Peter Pirolli and Stuart Card (1999) formulated information foraging theory, adapting optimal foraging models from biology. Eye-tracking studies of web pages, publicized by Jakob Nielsen and the Nielsen Norman Group from 2006, described scanning patterns such as the “F-shaped” pattern.

Main models

1. Information foraging theory. Readers stay with a source while its yield is high and move on when the expected gain elsewhere is greater.
2. Information scent. Cues on the current page determine which paths are followed and when a search is abandoned.
3. Paradox of the active user. Users prefer acting to reading and consult documentation when they are stuck.
4. Evolving search. Needs and queries change during the search.
5. Wayfinding. Readers orient themselves by landmarks, paths and a sense of where they are within a structure.

Function and purpose

These models explain why readers rarely read documentation from beginning to end, why they enter through search or links at arbitrary points and why poor labels make existing information effectively unavailable. They treat documentation use as a series of decisions about where to look next.

Applications in technical communication

Documentation practice uses headings and link texts that name the reader’s goal or symptom, so that they carry strong information scent. Pages establish their context, because readers arrive at them directly, as described in the Every Page is Page One model (see Technical documentation models). Important information is placed where scanning finds it — in headings, the first words of paragraphs and labeled lists — while information that must be read in sequence, such as a procedure with its warnings, is marked as such. Progressive disclosure layers overview and detail. Metadata and taxonomies support search and filtering by product and situation. Card sorting, usability testing and search log analysis are used to check whether readers find what they need. Findability does not replace completeness: information for use that is required must be present and identifiable, even if many readers will look only for a part of it.

Limitations and evidence

The statement that “people don’t read” is a simplification: readers read selectively and read thoroughly when the content is relevant and the stakes are clear. The F-shaped pattern describes scanning of poorly structured text-heavy pages in particular studies; the Nielsen Norman Group itself describes it as one of several patterns that depends on layout, task and reader, not as a universal law of reading. Information foraging theory was developed largely from web and library search and models rational adaptation; it describes tendencies, not the path of an individual reader. Wayfinding in information spaces is an analogy, not a direct application of spatial cognition research.

Relation to other areas

Information seeking precedes and frames the other stages of the reader’s processing chain: scanning uses visual search (see Perception and attention), and a found page must then be understood and acted upon. It connects cognitive psychology with information architecture and the documentation models of topic-based writing.

Conclusion

Research on information seeking describes readers as goal-driven foragers who enter at any point and follow scent. Documentation responds with meaningful labels, self-contained pages and layered structure, while keeping required information complete and clearly marked.