Knowledge Base Repository
In addition to research papers, the Design Society is developing several valuable resources for those interested in the study of design. These include a repository of PhD theses, a library of case studies and transcripts of design activities, and an archive of our newsletters. Please note that these resources are accessible exclusively to Design Society members.
The difficulties reported by engineers in searching information
Zhang, Shuai; Johnson, Aylmer
Type:
Year:
2017
Editor:
Anja Maier, Stanko Škec, Harrison Kim, Michael Kokkolaras, Josef Oehmen, Georges Fadel, Filippo Salustri, Mike Van der Loos
Author:
Series:
ICED
Institution:
University of Cambridge, United Kingdom
Section:
Design Information and Knowledge
Page(s):
161-168
ISBN:
978-1-904670-94-0
ISSN:
2220-4342
Abstract:
Efforts have been made by researchers in the area of knowledge management to understand engineers’ information searching behaviors, such as the types of information searched by engineers, and the sources and tools they use to address their information needs. However, few studies pay attention to the difficulties that engineers are experiencing in fulfilling their information needs. This paper presents an exploratory study that investigates the problems of information searching in engineering design development. In this research, eight engineers with different level of experience were interviewed to identify the difficulties they deal with in searching required information. The reported problems that participants are experiencing include: 1) formulating information queries; 2) hesitation in consulting others; 3) the limitations of existing retrieval tools.
Keywords:
