The derivation of a behavioural model for information retrieval system design.

This study outlines the derivation of a
behavioural model intended to underpin thinking on
questions concerning the design of information
retrieval systems for academic social scientists. The
historical background of information retrieval research
is reviewed and the behavioural assumptions made in
that research, characterised as the information
retrieval model, are examined. Developments in the
research tradition following from the early empirical
tests on information retrieval systems are discussed,
and problems experienced in the attempt to develop a
coherent and practically useful research programme
around the notion of relevance as a quantitative
concept are analysed.
A major alternative to work employing the
information retrieval model has been the cognitive
approach to information retrieval system design. In
research so far undertaken in this approach the system
has had to construct a cognitive model of the
searcher's requirements in order for retrieval to take
place. It is argued that the characteristics of social
science information present particular difficulties for
building such a model, and that the step of the system
building a cognitive model of the searcher's
requirements as a pre—requisite for retrieval is
unnecessary.
Instead, a behavioural approach to system design
is recommended. The information seeking patterns of a
variety of academic social scientists, derived from
transcripts of interviews, were analysed and broken
down into six characteristics, starting, chaining,
browsing, differentiating, monitoring, and extracting.
These characteristics seemed sufficient to exhaust the
different generic features of the various patterns, and
to provide a flexible behavioural model to underpin
thinking about information retrieval system design.
The features of an exploratory retrieval system
for social scientists based on the characteristics of
their information seeking patterns are outlined, the
extent to which such features are available in existing
systems, and the requirements for implementing the
model on an operational system are considered. The
argument of the study is that the behavioural approach,
and the analysis of information seeking patterns into
their characteristics, represents a coherent and
practically useful basis for the design of exploratory information retrieval systems for academic social
scientists.