Information foraging
Encyclopedia
Information foraging is a theory that applies the ideas from optimal foraging theory
to understand how human users search for information. The theory is based on the assumption that, when searching for information, humans use "built-in" foraging mechanisms that evolved to help our animal ancestors find food. Importantly, better understanding of human search behaviour can improve the usability of websites or any other user interface.
was developed by anthropologists
and ecologists
to explain how animals hunt for food. It suggested that the eating habits of animals revolve around maximizing energy
intake over a given amount of time. For every predator
, certain prey are worth pursuing, while others would result in a net loss of energy.
In the early 1990s, Peter Pirolli
and Stuart Card
from PARC noticed the similarities between users' information searching patterns and animal food foraging strategies. Working together with psychologists
to analyse users' actions and the information landscape that they navigated (links, descriptions, and other data), they showed that information seekers use the same strategies as food foragers.
In the late 1990s, Ed H. Chi worked with Pirolli, Card and others at PARC further developed information scent ideas and algorithm to actually use these concepts in real interactive systems, including the modeling of web user browsing behavior, the inference of information needs from web visit log files, and the use of information scent concepts in reading and browsing interfaces.
In the early 2000s, Wai-Tat Fu worked with Pirolli to develop the SNIF-ACT model, which further extends the theory to provide mechanistic account of information seeking. The model provides good fits to link selection on Web pages, decision to leave a page (stickiness), and how both link text and its position may affect overall successes of information search. The SNIF-ACT model was also shown to exhibit statistical properties that resemble the law of surfing found in large-scale Web log data.
s" constantly make decisions on what kind of information to look for, whether to stay at the current site to try to find additional information or whether they should move on to another site, which path or link to follow to the next information site, and when to finally stop the search. Although human cognition is not a result of evolutionary pressure to improve Web use, survival-related traits to respond quickly on partial information and reduce energy expenditures force them to optimise their searching behaviour and, simultaneously, to minimize the thinking required.
These models assume that users perceive relevance of information based on some measures of information scent, which are usually derived based on statistical techniques that extract semantic relatedness of words from large text databases. Recently these information foraging models have been extended to explain social information behavior
See also models of collaborative tagging
.
Optimal foraging theory
Optimal foraging theory is an idea in ecology based on the study of foraging behaviour and states that organisms forage in such a way as to maximize their net energy intake per unit time. In other words, they behave in such a way as to find, capture and consume food containing the most calories...
to understand how human users search for information. The theory is based on the assumption that, when searching for information, humans use "built-in" foraging mechanisms that evolved to help our animal ancestors find food. Importantly, better understanding of human search behaviour can improve the usability of websites or any other user interface.
History of the theory
In the 1970s optimal foraging theoryOptimal foraging theory
Optimal foraging theory is an idea in ecology based on the study of foraging behaviour and states that organisms forage in such a way as to maximize their net energy intake per unit time. In other words, they behave in such a way as to find, capture and consume food containing the most calories...
was developed by anthropologists
Anthropology
Anthropology is the study of humanity. It has origins in the humanities, the natural sciences, and the social sciences. The term "anthropology" is from the Greek anthrōpos , "man", understood to mean mankind or humanity, and -logia , "discourse" or "study", and was first used in 1501 by German...
and ecologists
Ecology
Ecology is the scientific study of the relations that living organisms have with respect to each other and their natural environment. Variables of interest to ecologists include the composition, distribution, amount , number, and changing states of organisms within and among ecosystems...
to explain how animals hunt for food. It suggested that the eating habits of animals revolve around maximizing energy
Energy
In physics, energy is an indirectly observed quantity. It is often understood as the ability a physical system has to do work on other physical systems...
intake over a given amount of time. For every predator
Predation
In ecology, predation describes a biological interaction where a predator feeds on its prey . Predators may or may not kill their prey prior to feeding on them, but the act of predation always results in the death of its prey and the eventual absorption of the prey's tissue through consumption...
, certain prey are worth pursuing, while others would result in a net loss of energy.
In the early 1990s, Peter Pirolli
Peter Pirolli
Peter Pirolli is currently a Research Fellow in the Augmented Social Cognition Area at the Palo Alto Research Center . He is well known in the Human-Computer Interaction field for pursuing studies of human information interaction. His most well-known work is the development of Information foraging...
and Stuart Card
Stuart Card
Stuart K. Card is an American researcher and Senior Research Fellow at Xerox PARC. He is considered to be one of the pioneers of applying human factors in human–computer interaction.- Biography :...
from PARC noticed the similarities between users' information searching patterns and animal food foraging strategies. Working together with psychologists
Psychology
Psychology is the study of the mind and behavior. Its immediate goal is to understand individuals and groups by both establishing general principles and researching specific cases. For many, the ultimate goal of psychology is to benefit society...
to analyse users' actions and the information landscape that they navigated (links, descriptions, and other data), they showed that information seekers use the same strategies as food foragers.
In the late 1990s, Ed H. Chi worked with Pirolli, Card and others at PARC further developed information scent ideas and algorithm to actually use these concepts in real interactive systems, including the modeling of web user browsing behavior, the inference of information needs from web visit log files, and the use of information scent concepts in reading and browsing interfaces.
In the early 2000s, Wai-Tat Fu worked with Pirolli to develop the SNIF-ACT model, which further extends the theory to provide mechanistic account of information seeking. The model provides good fits to link selection on Web pages, decision to leave a page (stickiness), and how both link text and its position may affect overall successes of information search. The SNIF-ACT model was also shown to exhibit statistical properties that resemble the law of surfing found in large-scale Web log data.
Details of the theory
"InformavoreInformavore
The term informavore characterizes an organism that consumes information. It is meant to be a description of human behavior in modern information society, in comparison to omnivore, as a description of humans consuming food. George A...
s" constantly make decisions on what kind of information to look for, whether to stay at the current site to try to find additional information or whether they should move on to another site, which path or link to follow to the next information site, and when to finally stop the search. Although human cognition is not a result of evolutionary pressure to improve Web use, survival-related traits to respond quickly on partial information and reduce energy expenditures force them to optimise their searching behaviour and, simultaneously, to minimize the thinking required.
Information scent
The most important concept in the information foraging theory is "information scent". As animals rely on scents to indicate the chances of finding prey in current area and guide them to other promising patches, so do humans rely on various cues in the information environment to get similar answers. Human users estimate how much useful information they are likely to get on a given path, and after seeking information compare the actual outcome with their predictions. When the information scent stops getting stronger (i.e., when users no longer expect to find useful additional information), the users move to a different information source.Information snacking
Some tendencies in the behaviour of web users are easily understood from the information foraging theory standpoint. On the Web, each site is a patch and information is the prey. Leaving a site is easy, but finding good sites has not always been as easy. Advanced search engines have changed this fact by reliably providing relevant links, altering the foraging strategies of the users. When users expect that sites with lots of information are easy to find, they have less incentive to stay in one place. The growing availability of broadband connections may have a similar effect: always-on connections encourage "information snacking", short online visits to get specific answers.Models of information foraging
Attempts have been made to develop computational cognitive models to characterize information foraging behavior on the Web.These models assume that users perceive relevance of information based on some measures of information scent, which are usually derived based on statistical techniques that extract semantic relatedness of words from large text databases. Recently these information foraging models have been extended to explain social information behavior
See also models of collaborative tagging
Models of collaborative tagging
Many have argued that social tagging or collaborative tagging systems can provide navigational cues or “way-finders” for other users to explore information. The notion is that, given that social tags are labels that users create to represent topics extracted from Web documents, interpretation of...
.
Sources
- Information Foraging: Why Google Makes People Leave Your Site Faster by Jakob NielsenJakob Nielsen (usability consultant)Jakob Nielsen is a leading web usability consultant. He holds a Ph.D. in human–computer interaction from the Technical University of Denmark in Copenhagen.-Early life and background:...
, June 30, 2003, Alertbox. - High-tech quest for a user-friendly Web, June 2, 2002, USA TodayUSA TodayUSA Today is a national American daily newspaper published by the Gannett Company. It was founded by Al Neuharth. The newspaper vies with The Wall Street Journal for the position of having the widest circulation of any newspaper in the United States, something it previously held since 2003...
. - Word Spy - information foraging, December 19, 2002.