QUESTIONS

  1. Ellis' behaviors of information seeking are listed below. Some thoughts around "starting" have already been presented in this chapter. For each of the others, think of specific ways that you have experienced each on the Web.

    1. Chaining

    2. Browsing

    3. Differentiating

    4. Monitoring

    5. Extracting

  2. Consider Donna Maurer's notion of the "don't know what you need to know" mode of information seeking, mentioned in this chapter. How might you design a site to support it? List three things a web site could do to help people find information they aren't directly looking for, but still need.

  3. Look at the following excerpt from a familiar document and consider how form and genre might help you navigate:

    What is it?

    Figure 2-15. What is it?

    1. What is this image from?

    2. Where are you in the document?

    3. Where would go to find a list of soups?

    4. Where would you go in the document to look for drinks?

    5. What do the little "chili" symbols likely refer to next to three of the items?

  4. Navigate to your favorite book or new best seller on Amazon.com, Amazon in your country, or another bookselling site. Compare each new page with the previous page, rapidly using the back and forward buttons on your browser. Note exactly what changes from page to page. Some changes to look out for are navigation options, layout and position of elements, as well as color, font, and text size.

    1. What stays constant and what is variable?

    2. How does this help or hurt navigation? ...

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