Lower levels of educational attainment and higher age contribute
to a large extent to the individual operational and formal skill
related problem, limiting basic Internet use. The major operational
problems are saving files or PDF documents. This is problematic
since many agencies offer their brochures and information by
PDF. More support on how to open and save files is needed. The
use of search engines as instruments of support is also not a natural
task for everyone (e.g., entering keywords in the address bar or
typing keywords attached to each other). The mouse, scrollbar and
web-based forms caused only some problems for lower-educated
and seniors.
Regarding individual formal skill problems, one can notice that
while websites may seem to be easy to navigate for designers,
users may find them disorientating and confusing. The most frequently
experienced problem was the lack of orientation when
navigating between websites, but also within websites and between
search results. Also, websites’ menus – especially roll-over
– were sources of confusion. Mostly seniors and low-educated participants
experienced these problems. The design and implementation
of websites should offer better support for these groups.
A major information skill related problem seems to be the formulation
of unsuitable or overly general search queries. Educational
attainment is a strong contributor to this problem. Another
problem is the lack of knowledge about employing Booleans. The
use of Booleans is not publicized, and the interface to compose
queries with them is hidden from initial view (Marchionini and
White, 2007). A problem that almost all subjects experienced is
the limited use of search results; typically, the first three results attracted
attention, and the second page with results was only
opened sporadically. This is in accordance with other information-seeking
studies (e.g., Aula and Nordhausen, 2006; Birru
et al., 2004; Hargittai, 2003). The results also revealed that the older
the subject the less irrelevant search results were selected. This
illustrates that information skills are not necessarily more easily
mastered by the digital generation. An important problem that
users experienced is the fact that almost none of them tended to
evaluate the information found. The individual information skill
related problems identified in this study should gain more attention
in educational programs, both on primary levels and programs
for the elderly.
Regarding strategic skill related problems it was revealed that
the use of websites that support users in making informed decisions
(e.g., voting) only caused more new problems. These websites,
though often found, are employed in the wrong way. Lower
levels of educational attainment contributed to working in an
unstructured manner. Another important problem was the fact
that subjects had trouble keeping their focus on the original goal
of the assignment. Although the number of distracted subjects
was low (we expect this number to be higher in real life since
the test environment more or less forced the participants to focus
on the assignment), many of them did lose track of their personal
goals. Like information skill related problems, strategic skill problems
should gain more attention in educational programs (also
emphasized by Schrum and Bracey, 2003). However, it will be hard
to address these problems as they may turn up in a large and
unpredictable diversity.