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Kilian, Melanie A. ; Elsweiler, David ; Ruthven, Ian

Right answers to wrong questions: The dysfunctional nature of information needs

Kilian, Melanie A. , Elsweiler, David and Ruthven, Ian (2025) Right answers to wrong questions: The dysfunctional nature of information needs. Journal of the Association for Information Science and Technology.

Date of publication of this fulltext: 06 Aug 2025 08:32
Article
DOI to cite this document: 10.5283/epub.77492


Abstract

People frequently experience difficulties when seeking information to complete tasks. To overcome these difficulties, people require help. Regarding struggles with information needs, past research focuses on unclear information requests, such as ambiguous, under-specified, and ill-defined queries, and repairing these by user-led strategies (e.g., clarification). In an exploratory qualitative ...

People frequently experience difficulties when seeking information to complete tasks. To overcome these difficulties, people require help. Regarding struggles with information needs, past research focuses on unclear information requests, such as ambiguous, under-specified, and ill-defined queries, and repairing these by user-led strategies (e.g., clarification). In an exploratory qualitative study where information clerks were interviewed, we, however, found that well-formed and seemingly reasonable requests can conceal misconceptions inquirers have (e.g., about what information is required for their current task) and, therefore, interfere with information seeking and task completion, too. Besides being more difficult to identify than unclear requests, such hidden misconceptions also undermine current user-led repair strategies as they cause inquirers to believe they are making appropriate requests. Understanding misconceptions in information seeking and requests concealing these is, therefore, essential to building more effective information systems. Our study contributes to addressing this task: It is the first to provide empirical insights into how misconceptions can negatively influence information requests, information-seeking conversations, and task completion. Ultimately, our findings highlight that inquirers' perceived information needs can present an unreliable and even counterproductive basis for task support, implying that researchers and professionals should rethink the prevailing focus on user requests in designing information systems.



Involved Institutions


Details

Item typeArticle
Journal or Publication TitleJournal of the Association for Information Science and Technology
Publisher:Wiley
Date31 July 2025
InstitutionsLanguages and Literatures > Institut für Information und Medien, Sprache und Kultur (I:IMSK)
Languages and Literatures > Institut für Information und Medien, Sprache und Kultur (I:IMSK) > Lehrstuhl für Informationswissenschaft (Prof. Dr. Udo Kruschwitz)
Informatics and Data Science > Department Human-Centered Computing > Lehrstuhl für Informationswissenschaft (Prof. Dr. Udo Kruschwitz)
Identification Number
ValueType
10.1002/asi.70010DOI
Dewey Decimal Classification000 Computer science, information & general works > 004 Computer science
StatusPublished
RefereedYes, this version has been refereed
Created at the University of RegensburgPartially
URN of the UB Regensburgurn:nbn:de:bvb:355-epub-774929
Item ID77492

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