Users' perception of the performance of a filtering system
Raya Fidel, Michael D. Crandall · 1997
Abstmd.~though falteringekctronic information is -8 qidly, vq fewstudiesexamined users'perceptions about the success of filtering.Users at the Boeing Company participated in a study which collected data throughobservation, verbal protocols, questionnaire, and interviews.Dsts analysis used four levels of relevance to assess the importance,and fkquency of use, of thirken criteria for relevance, and fourteen for non relevance, that are not topics or subject matters.Results showed that perceived precision ratios for tiltered information were higher then the ratios fbr non-falteredinfbrmatiorLbut not significantly and could still be improved even though most respondents were satisfied with these ratios.Developing methods to create and maintain useful profiles, and finding ways to incorporaterelevance as well as non-relevan= criteria into profdes, are neceswuy to improve the performanceof faltering medumisms.Filtering electronicinformationis a vital componentof contemporaryinformationwork, The rapid development of informationtihnology atkcted not only the wayusers look for Wormation and retrievei~but also organizational desi~intelligence,and managementdecisionmaking (Huber, 1990;Dow et al., 1993;GoodmaQ 1993).In additio~with the increasingamount of informationthat is availableelectronically,the need to developmechanismsto filter what a user receiveshas becomeof paramount importance.This need has been mcognimd by prof-ionals in various fields and on all levels: The Wall Street Journal sleti its readers to fight back data overload(Wdlcely, 1989); medicallibrarians have been examiningfiltering clinical informationfor a number ofyears (Marshall, 1993~and the ACM dedicateda whole issue of its Communications to Permissh to make digitdhrd copies of a)l or part of this material fbr personal or Classfoom use is granted without fee provided that the copies arenotmdeor distribefm~fmw mmmcrcial Wtwntage, the cmpyrigbt notkq the title of the publication and its date appear, and notice is &!kn that Wpyr@tt is by permission of the ACM, Inc.To mpy otherwise.to republit@ to post on serwrs or to redistribute to lists, requires specific permission andhr fx.