A content analysis on the use of methods in online user research

Abstract

This article presents an analysis of international publications on digital user research in a digital library environement during the last ten years and it considers whether the method was used on- or offline. Digital library users are no longer tied to a local place. Online users of digital libraries are multi-local, multi-lingual and live in multiple time-zones. Getting purposeful data in online user research requires that the research be done online because the users are there. Not all methods are currently usable online; focus groups are difficult in an online environment, as are interviews and ethnographic observations. The analysis shows that still nearly 50 % of the online user research is held offline and that the survey is the most commonly used method.