On the web at home: Information seeking and web searching in the home environment

Abstract

This is a preprint of an article published in the Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, 55, pp. 743-753. Abstract: The objective of this study was to characterize the home as an information use environment and to identify a range of information seeking and Web search behaviors at home. The data were analyzed on four levels: home environment, information seeking goals, information retrieval interaction, and search query. Findings indicated that the home, indeed, provided a distinct information use environment beyond physical setting alone in which the subjects used the Web for diverse purposes and interests.