Aspects of dealing with digital information: "mature" novices on the internet

INTRODUCTION

The combination of digitalization and electronic communication has provided us with a marvellous, well-nigh inexhaustible source of information: the Internet. Young people who are growing up with the Internet are its natural users, and librarians focus their attention to teaching them how to use the Internet efficiently when they are searching for professional information. (1) Because of this focus on the young, the needs of another group that can benefit from this rich source are neglected. This is the group of mature researchers. They are well-educated, intelligent professionals who are experienced in dealing with information. They are used to working with word processors, e-mail programs, and other computer applications and know how to search databases. Yet, many of them rarely turn to the Internet for information and, whenever they do, they are not able to use it effectively. This is due partly to the researchers and partly to the character of the Internet as a source of professional information. This paper will discuss those two obstacles and what can be done to assist the mature users in overcoming them.

DEFINITION OF MATURE INTERNET USERS

The group described here as "mature" users--so as not to hurt anybody's feelings about age--consists of professionals thirty and over, with no upper age limit (and some significantly younger than thirty). In my work as a librarian, I was often confronted with the younger category, and in my personal life I am regularly consulted by friends of over seventy, some of them in their eighties. In my experience, there is little difference in type of difficulties according to age, it only gets harder to overcome them. All mature researchers do know their way around printed sources, but have received their professional training before the boom in digitalization and electronic communication. The skills to deal with digital information they picked up along the way as computers slowly penetrated first their offices at work and then their studies at home. The transition was gradual on all fronts: From typewriter to word processor is but a small step and from card catalog to an online catalog is (to the library patron) just a change in how to search the records. The possibility of sending e-mail is a welcome addition to the usual channels of communication, but it is not seen as really "new," as it is perceived as a written phone message. Yet, in electronic mail and other online applications lies the real giant leap made possible by digitizing information. Thanks to electronic communication, computers can be linked in ever increasing and highly complicated networks, and hyperlinking makes it possible to connect the content of all those computers.

Mature users often do not bother with the Internet as a source, because they know how and where to find what they need efficiently in printed sources. If they do decide to turn to the Internet, they often have great difficulty in finding the desired information. One clear obstacle in searching the Internet is their computer skills, in particular operating a mouse and interpreting the navigation information on a screen. (2) Another difficulty lies in the difference in search strategies required.

COMPUTER SKILLS

Applications such as word processing are mainly key-operated, while the Internet is very much mouse-operated. Instruction can easily be given on basics such as the difference between left and right click (command versus dropdown menu). When to use single or double click is less easily conveyed. There is no visible indication, and it usually boils down to experience to know how often to click. Besides, experienced users often are not aware this may pose a problem, as they themselves will recognize and correct any error almost instantly. Many mature users are not very adept at using a mouse, because it takes finely tuned motor control to point a mouse at a specific spot and click without moving away from that spot. The younger a person, the easier it is to train for this control, and the only way to learn is by practicing. But when work has to be done on the computer, poor mouse control is an encumbrance and a nuisance, so people rather rely on their keyboard skills. Playing mouse-operated computer games in which speed does not matter (such as solitaire) is one of the best ways to train oneself for mouse skills. It provides an opportunity to practice without the irritation of being hampered in one's work, because the outcome of a game does not have the same importance. But sadly, most mature users are not very enthusiastic about playing computer games.

A second important skill is the ability to interpret the navigation pointers on the screen. In applications there is a certain convention in the use of symbols and the position of information on the screen that helps operate the program. A menu bar is at the top, an arrow to the right means "forward" and a tiny picture (two squares and some horizontal lines) indicates a print button. Any number of actions may cause to appear on the screen a dialog box that contains information on how to proceed. (Often the content of dialog boxes is not very clear, but that is another matter, not considered here.) In many programs, however, there is no clear indication on the screen how to exit safely at any given moment.