Differences between novice and experienced users in searching information on the World Wide Web

TLDR

Searching for information on the World Wide Web essentially involves locating a suitable website and retrieving relevant content from it. The study investigated how users’ Web experience influences both locating websites and retrieving information, and examined the impact of domain expertise and suggested future research directions. Twenty-five Dutch pre‑university students were observed while completing three search tasks. Experienced users were more proficient at locating websites due to superior search‑engine skills, yet performed similarly to novices when finding information on specific sites, supporting hypertext research and highlighting training implications.

Abstract

Searching for information on the World Wide Web (WWW) basically comes down to locating an appropriate Web site and to retrieving relevant information from that site. This study examined the effect of a user's WWW experience on both phases of the search process. Twenty-five students from two schools for Dutch pre-university education were observed while performing three search tasks. The results indicate that subjects with WWW-experience are more proficient in locating Web sites than are novice WWW-users. The observed differences were ascribed to the experts' superior skills in operating Web search engines. However, on tasks that required subjects to locate information on specific Web sites, the performance of experienced and novice users was equivalent—a result that is in line with hypertext research. Based on these findings, implications for training and supporting students in searching for information on the WWW are identified. Finally, the role of the subjects' level of domain expertise is discussed and directions for future research are proposed.