Jared Spool is CEO and co-founder of User Interface Engineering (UIE), a think tank. They advise clients how to design their browser-based systems for the best information retrieval experience possible. This includes web sites, but also knowledge management systems --nowadays better known as enterprise content management systems.

Imagine yourself looking for inkjet drivers on HP’s website. That’s not too hard is it? Chances are that you found HP’s site pretty much supporting your efforts without the need for passing by the search box. But have you ever wondered why you thought HP’s --or your own favourite vendor’s-- site did such a good job?

The chaps at UIE have. In fact, that is what they do for a living. They invite people like you and me in their labs, and let them perform information lookup tasks. They watch our every move and if necessary they’ll ask us what we thought when we were hunting for that one piece of vital information.

If I would have to compare UIE with anything else, Nielsen’s usability research firm would be the first to come to mind. But UIE is not just about usability, it goes way deeper. In fact, it goes right to the core of what we do on the Web, on intranets and extranets: we find ourselves hunting for information.

Jared Spool was kind enough to set up a chat with me on the subject of his latest report. Initially, I was going to meet Jared in the flesh, at the KCCEurope event in Amsterdam for one of the paper magazines I wrote for (Computable in the Netherlands, for the curious), but Jared couldn’t make it. As he was the main reason why I wanted to go to KCCEurope, I rang him and asked him if he would be willing to answer my questions on the phone.

Jared did better; he proposed to Skype so that it wouldn’t cost me a fortune, and he offered to send me his latest report, the one on designing for the scent of information. And so I had a good and interesting read, and we both had the pleasure of hearing each other’s voice as if we were sitting in the same room on the 9th of November.

The report

I used the word “hunting” a few times in the previous paragraphs. I did that on purpose. It turns out, UIE found that people searching a large information space, act as “informavores” on the hunt for information. The path towards the information a user needs must have a “scent” to it --it must make us feel confident that with every step we make, we’re getting closer to our objective.

And so, the report tells about user that have been subjected to UIE’s questions on how they searched for specific information. The word search, however, is perhaps a bit misplaced: “Browsing is actually more reliable to find what you’re looking for,” said Jared Spool in the interview.

The example used in the report covers HP’s web site and a user who is trying to find the latest drivers for his inkjet printer. When he lands on the home page, a button clearly labelled “Drivers” takes him to another page which contains a small form with a drop-down menu holding all of the types of drivers available. The user selects Printers and without hesitation clicks the Next button. Then he is presented with a form asking him all kinds of questions, but as all of these questions are related to narrowing down his search, he fills in the blanks without complaining and finally he gets what he wants.