Exploring information seeking behaviour in a digital museum context

This paper describes the preliminary results of a case study of task-based interactive information seeking and retrieval behaviour of virtual museum visitors in context. The research described here is part of a larger study: this paper specifically looks at 1) leisure tasks/interests and derived information needs, and 2) main characteristics of virtual museum visitors ’ information seeking behaviour. Both quantitative and qualitative data were gathered from written enquiries to the museum, an online questionnaire and a user study of simulated interest tasks combined with retrospective think-aloud sessions. The data collected did not show exploratory behaviour to be predominant as expected. Rather analysis of data indicates a broad coverage of different types of needs. Finally, four main characteristics of virtual museum guests ’ information seeking behaviour were identifie