Search,Serendipity, and the Researcher Experience |
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| Authors: | Lettie Y Conrad |
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| Abstract: | ABSTRACTLettie Conrad reported on the findings of original research on academic user experience with serendipitous discovery in scholarly research. This research has been released as the fourth installment of a series about discoverability as part of the SAGE White Papers. This research was designed to examine how students and faculty seek content beyond the search box. The researchers being studied take advantage of unplanned or unexpected content discoveries such as selecting a link in an e-mail alert, following a trail of citations within an important paper, or making use of recommendations. The study found that researchers decide to follow recommendations, either machine generated or from an acquaintance, based on a combination of perception of relevance to the field of study, access to the recommended article, and trust in the provider. SAGE has used these findings to enhance its products to better showcase content to users and then help them to more readily make sense of it. |
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| Keywords: | Discovery information seeking behavior search relevance serendipitous discovery usability testing |
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