| This dissertation examined how task influences information seeking behavior in the new digital information environment of the World Wide Web. There are three primary reasons for considering this issue: to understand the nature of people's information seeking tasks, to investigate the ways in which they attempt to execute tasks in their IR system interactions, and to facilitate the development and design of an IR system so that it serves people's task goals and buttresses their task-related information seeking behaviors. The specific goal for the study is to understand how people's interactions in digital environments are influenced by task. This study attempted to identify the types of task that represent Web users' diverse information needs. It also sought to understand how types of tasks connect to information seeking behaviors. Specifically, this study investigated how different types of tasks can be related to different searching behaviors.; Thirty students with backgrounds in Library and Information Science participated in this study in a laboratory setting. Three different types of tasks were derived from task attributes: factual task, interpretive task, and exploratory task. During the search, screen capture software recorded each subject's screen activity, which included movements made by the mouse, input by the subject, and system response. After completing each task, a post-search interview in an open-ended format was conducted to clarify actions and decisions taken during the search. The transcribed interviews were then content analyzed.; Five task attributes were confirmed from the results of this study: task structure, task goal, task topic, expected information, and expected source. It was found that such task attributes have a direct or mediating impact on information seeking behavior for those using the World Wide Web. There were significant differences in information searching interaction and information searching strategies between task types. Furthermore, task difficulty, topic knowledge, and searchers' demographic characteristics as mediating factors influenced the relationship between types of task and information seeking behavior on the Web. Implications for Web system design which could effectively support information seeking tasks are discussed in the conclusions. |
