What do people recall about their documents?

Abstract

This study aims at finding out which attributes people actually recall about their own documents (electronic and paper), and what are the characteristics of their recall, in order to provide recommendations on how to improve tools allowing users to retrieve their electronic files more effectively and more easily. An experiment was conducted with fourteen participants at their workplace. They were asked first to recall features about one (or several) of their own work documents, and secondly to retrieve these documents. The difficulties encountered by the participants in retrieving their electronic documents support the need for better retrieval tools. More specifically, results of the recall task indicate which attributes are candidates for facilitating file retrieval and how search tools should use these attributes.