Design of model-based interfaces for a real world information system

Information seeking is fundamentally a situated cognitive activity where user's cognitive capabilities and limitations, the work domain and task context, and the content and form of medium, influence the process. We used questionnaire responses, field studies of real-world professionals, and cognitive modeling techniques to collect data about the complex information-seeking process under real conditions, to develop a knowledge base for principled design, and to create a cognitive model of information seeking in a corporate environment. We describe the design and evaluation of task-based personalized search form interfaces based on the cognitive model. Results show that search forms personalized for the individual searcher improve performance over those interfaces that are mismatched to searcher's characteristics. Further, findings show that information source selection is critical in enhancing the effectiveness of information retrieval in real-world electronic information systems.