search, serendipity & the researcher experience


Lettie Y. Conrad

Executive Program Manager, Discovery & Access

At SAGE, we take seriously our obligation to ensure readers get to the SAGE content they need as smoothly and effectively as possible wherever their starting point and regardless of their device.

http://content.news.sagepub.com/emessageIRS/servlet/IRSL?v=5&a=10050&r=58695&m=126&l=18&e=2&x=2457788.0


SAGE White PapersLettie Conrad & Alan Maloney

http://bit.ly/23Z99d4




Expecting the Unexpected

What do users need beyond search?How are those needs and expectations formed? Does demography or context impact these expectations?How are publishers servicing those indirect discovery needs?What happens when users aren’t sure what they’re looking for?


Research Methods

UX research Survey Interviews

Undergraduate Students u u

Masters/PhD Students u u

Faculty u u uContent & Tech

Providers u


Defining terms

• Types of search

• Known-item searching

• Exploratory searching

• Re-finding

• Don’t know what you need to know

SERENDIPITY!


What is serendipity?

1. the finding of unexpected information (relevant to the goal or not) while engaged in any information activity

2. the making of an intellectual leap of understanding with that information to arrive at an insight.

Andre, P., Teevan, J., Dumais, S. T., ‘Discovery Is Never by Chance: Designing for (Un)Serendipity’, C&C ‘09, October 26-30, 2009, Berkeley, California, USA


Why does serendipity matter?• Students and researchers re-frame their information need as

they go

• Some useful information discoveries are unintentional

• People like serendipity: it delights users

Designing for serendipity may be the holy grail of the search experience.

Russell-Rose, T., Tate, T. (2013). Designing the Search Experience: The Information Architecture of Discovery. Waltham, MA: Morgan Kaufmann.


Beyond search

• Email alerts

• Following citations

• Human recommendations

• Machine recommendations / relatedness


Recommendations as discovery

90% faculty 78% students

Online recommendations are about as useful than those I receive from peers


Context is key!How important are the following factors when evaluating recommended content?

• Related to my field of study• Can access the full text• Recognize / trust the provider


Listed as "also read" by other users

From a recognized / trustworthy publisher

Recommended by a peer / faculty member

From a known author / expert

Uses your search terms / keywords

Titles that look interesting / compelling

Relevant to your field

Titles that appear relevant for your studies

0.00% 25.00% 50.00% 75.00% 100.00%

When presented with links to recommended content, which factors motivate you to click on one or more

such links? (check all that apply)

Faculty Undergrads


Content types – students

1. Journals2. Books3. Case studies4. Multimedia


Content types – faculty

1. Journals2. Books3. Stats / datasets4. Conference reports


Industry research


The popular-personal continuum

Popular Personal

Big data Small data

Network-driven Content-driven

mass market retail

entertainment

scholarly research


(Our) principles for serendipitous discovery

Academic research is personal

Content-focused, not behaviour-focused

Point of serendipitous discovery is the current, specific

information need

Serendipity should be unexpected


Thank you!

Lettie Y. Conrad

[email protected]

SAGE White Papershttp://bit.ly/23Z99d4

mailto:[email protected]

mailto:[email protected]




search, serendipity & the researcher experience

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