Think-aloud studies of information behaviour

In this Painless Introduction, Stephann Makri will discuss how to plan and conduct think-aloud observations of digital information behaviour. This will be an interactive and discursive Painless Introduction where you will be directly involved in planning a study aimed at looking at how information is acquired, interpreted and used.

After the planning is done, an audience member will be invited to participate in the study and we will discuss how digital information environments can be designed to better support their digital information behaviour.

Stephann Makri is a Research Associate at UCL Interaction Centre. His research looks at how people acquire, interpret and use information in the context of their work and how this understanding can be fed into the user-centred design and evaluation of digital information environments. Stephann is currently working on a £1.82m UK Research Council funded project called SerenA: Chance Encounters in the Space of Ideas, which has involved gaining a rich understanding of peoples' examples of serendipity (including coming across information serendipitously) and using this understanding to inform the design of digital information environments aimed at creating opportunities for 'happy accidents.'