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Source preference criteria in the context of everyday projects Relevance judgments made by prospective home buyers Reijo Savolainen Department of Information Studies and Interactive Media, University of Tampere, Tampere, Finland Abstract Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to elaborate how source preference criteria are defined in the context of everyday projects that require the seeking of problem-specific information. More specifically, to find out how information seekers explain their preference criteria by characterizing the perceived strengths and weaknesses of diverse sources. Design/methodology/approach – The approach takes the form of qualitative content analysis of empirical data gathered by semi-structured interviews with 16 prospective home buyers in 2008. The source preference criteria were elicited by making use of the construct of information source horizon. Findings – Networked sources were favoured most strongly, followed by printed media, human sources and organizational sources. Content of information was the primary source preference criterion. Availability of information was a fairly important criterion, while user characteristics, usability of information and situational factors were fairly marginal in this regard. In the definition of the preference criteria, more emphasis was placed on the perceived strengths than weaknesses of sources. Positive qualities such as “provides updated information” were referred to particularly while judging the relevance of the networked sources. Negative qualities like “outdated information” were primarily associated with printed media and organizational sources. Research limitations/implications – The study is exploratory, drawing on a relatively small sample recruited through a web-based service. Thus, the findings cannot be generalized to prospective home buyers. Practical implications – Prospective home buyers tend to favour web-based information sources and services. They should provide the customers with detailed information about the property, including photos. Originality/value – The paper specifies the picture of user-defined relevance judgment in the context of everyday life information seeking. Keywords Information retrieval, Information media Paper type Research paper Introduction Traditionally, the questions of relevance assessment have been studied in the experimental settings of information retrieval (Borlund, 2003; Mizzaro, 1997). Since the 1990s, however, there is a growing interest to extend the scope of research into naturalistic settings in which information seekers define their relevance criteria (Barry, 1994). More recently, there have been attempts to enrich the picture of user-defined relevance judgment in the context of everyday life information seeking (Savolainen and Kari, 2006). In a major review of relevance studies, Saracevic (2007b, p. 2141) has recently emphasized the significance of research that would go beyond traditional IR The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available at www.emeraldinsight.com/0022-0418.htm JDOC 66,1 70 Received 18 February 2009 Revised 28 May 2009 Accepted 29 May 2009 Journal of Documentation Vol. 66 No. 1, 2010 pp. 70-92 q Emerald Group Publishing Limited 0022-0418 DOI 10.1108/00220411011016371

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Page 1: Source preference criteria in the context of everyday projects

Source preference criteria in thecontext of everyday projects

Relevance judgments made by prospectivehome buyers

Reijo SavolainenDepartment of Information Studies and Interactive Media,

University of Tampere, Tampere, Finland

Abstract

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to elaborate how source preference criteria are defined in thecontext of everyday projects that require the seeking of problem-specific information. Morespecifically, to find out how information seekers explain their preference criteria by characterizing theperceived strengths and weaknesses of diverse sources.

Design/methodology/approach – The approach takes the form of qualitative content analysis ofempirical data gathered by semi-structured interviews with 16 prospective home buyers in 2008. Thesource preference criteria were elicited by making use of the construct of information source horizon.

Findings – Networked sources were favoured most strongly, followed by printed media, humansources and organizational sources. Content of information was the primary source preferencecriterion. Availability of information was a fairly important criterion, while user characteristics,usability of information and situational factors were fairly marginal in this regard. In the definition ofthe preference criteria, more emphasis was placed on the perceived strengths than weaknesses ofsources. Positive qualities such as “provides updated information” were referred to particularly whilejudging the relevance of the networked sources. Negative qualities like “outdated information” wereprimarily associated with printed media and organizational sources.

Research limitations/implications – The study is exploratory, drawing on a relatively smallsample recruited through a web-based service. Thus, the findings cannot be generalized to prospectivehome buyers.

Practical implications – Prospective home buyers tend to favour web-based information sourcesand services. They should provide the customers with detailed information about the property,including photos.

Originality/value – The paper specifies the picture of user-defined relevance judgment in thecontext of everyday life information seeking.

Keywords Information retrieval, Information media

Paper type Research paper

IntroductionTraditionally, the questions of relevance assessment have been studied in theexperimental settings of information retrieval (Borlund, 2003; Mizzaro, 1997). Since the1990s, however, there is a growing interest to extend the scope of research intonaturalistic settings in which information seekers define their relevance criteria (Barry,1994). More recently, there have been attempts to enrich the picture of user-definedrelevance judgment in the context of everyday life information seeking (Savolainen andKari, 2006). In a major review of relevance studies, Saracevic (2007b, p. 2141) hasrecently emphasized the significance of research that would go beyond traditional IR

The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available at

www.emeraldinsight.com/0022-0418.htm

JDOC66,1

70

Received 18 February 2009Revised 28 May 2009Accepted 29 May 2009

Journal of DocumentationVol. 66 No. 1, 2010pp. 70-92q Emerald Group Publishing Limited0022-0418DOI 10.1108/00220411011016371

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studies in which students are “endlessly used as experimental subjects for relevanceexperimentation and observation”. Owing to this bias, “we are not getting a goodunderstanding of relevance related to real users, in real situations, dealing with realissues of relevance . . . if we are to gain a better understanding of relevance behaviorand effects in diverse populations, other populations should (and even must) be studiedas well” (Saracevic, 2007b, p. 2141).

The present article contributes to such investigations by focusing on relevancejudgments made by prospective home buyers. They are particularly interesting asinformation seekers because the decision to purchase an apartment is far-reaching.Particularly first-home buyers have to invest a considerable sum of money, and theloan repayment may even take 30 years. The purchasing decision also is far-reachingsince the household’s residence shapes a major portion of its living environment foryears, perhaps even decades (McCarthy, 1982, p. 43). Owing to the long-timeconsequences of the decision, the buyers have to plan their home purchase projects indetail and seek pertinent information about the housing market. In this context,therefore, the issues of judging the relevance of information used in thedecision-making are far from trivial.

To explore such issues, an attempt will be made to elucidate the nature of relevancejudgment from the perspective of source preferences. The main attention will be paid tocriteria by which information seekers judge the relevance of information sources such asnewspapers. Source preference criteria indicate how people judge the overall relevance ofinformation sources of various kinds. In the present study, attention will be devoted tohow information seekers explain their preference criteria by characterizing the perceivedstrengths and weaknesses of diverse sources. These criteria will be elicited by makinguse of the construct of information source horizon. The same construct has beenemployed in earlier studies on information seeking practices of environmental activistsand unemployed people (Savolainen, 2008). Thereby, the above study provides usefulcomparative data for the present investigation.

The present study is unique because the questions of source preference criteria havenot been explored earlier in greater detail in economically significant contexts ofeveryday life information seeking. The study is also unique from the perspective ofconsumer studies. Similar to traditional IR studies, mainstream consumer research isdominated by decontextualized experimental studies that typically draw on universitystudents as subjects. To complement the experimental approaches drawing onpre-assigned information search tasks, there is a need for qualitative and naturalisticstudies focusing on real consumers seeking information in everyday contexts (Case,2007, pp. 293-294).

The article is structured as follows. The next section provides a review of earlierresearch. Then, the theoretical framework and the empirical research design arespecified. The main part of the study consists of the empirical review of the sourcepreferences of prospective home buyers. The article is concluded with the discussion ofthe major findings and implications of the study.

Review of literatureInformation seeking among prospective home buyersInformation needs related to housing issues are fairly common among people. Forexample, a nationwide survey conducted in Great Britain revealed that the top ten

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information need areas include consumer and credit, and housing (Marcella andBaxter, 1999, p. 164). Because most home buyers enter the housing marketinfrequently, they are unfamiliar with the options available. They must first explorethe market to establish criteria for choosing a new unit and then locate and rankalternatives (McCarthy, 1982, p. 38). This necessitates active seeking of informationabout the housing opportunities.

To clarify these requirements, Maclennan and Wood (1982, pp. 135-139) developed amodel characterizing information needs and seeking during various phases of thehome purchase project. First, at the orientation phase, the searcher establishes his orher broad preferences for house type and location, and also identifies the areas orsectors of the local housing market to which he or she may, given perceivedconstraints, realistically aspire. Then, at the second phase, vacancies are identified bydrawing on diverse information sources. Next, the most promising vacancies areassessed in more detail by visiting them and acquiring more specific information aboutthe property. Finally, at the fourth phase, the individual makes a bid for the candidateapartment, and then makes the purchasing decision, or rejects the candidate.

Surveys on information seeking of prospective home buyers date back to the 1950s(Clark and Smith, 1979, pp. 575-576). Most of the early surveys were conducted in theUSA. Typically, they charted the popularity of diverse sources such as estate agencies.For example, McCarthy (1982, pp. 43-44) found that friends and relatives, newspaperads, personal visits to properties and estate agencies were the most frequently usedsources of information. In a survey conducted in Glasgow, Maclennan and Wood (1982)focused on information sources used by first-time home buyers. While establishinghousing availability, newspapers appeared to be the most popular sources since 76 percent of the participants had consulted them. Estate agents also were fairly popularsince 37 per cent of the respondents had contacted them. Other sources such as friendsand relatives were consulted less frequently. Newspapers were regarded as the mostuseful source (59 per cent of the respondents agreed with this assumption). By thiscriterion, other sources such as estate agents (9 per cent), and friends and relatives (6per cent) lagged far behind.

Newburger (1995, p. 445) conducted a survey in Boston to compare the informationsources used by black and white home buyers. Black respondents tended to consult asmaller total number of information sources than did whites (Newburger (1995, p. 452).It appeared that most black respondents used estate agents, suggesting that they are afar more important source of information about housing opportunities for blacks thanfor whites. More recently, Shimizu et al. (2004) surveyed the search and vacancy costsin the Tokyo housing market. They found that imperfect information plagues the realestate market in Japan (Shimizu et al., 2004, p. 213). Advertisements for the sale ofhouses do not necessarily convey information essential for buyers, such as detailedinformation about the residential environment around the condominium, its history ofmaintenance and restorations, and its structural conditions that are not seen from theoutside. Therefore, both sellers and buyers in the housing market have to makedecisons under imperfect information (Shimizu et al., 2004, p. 211). On the other hand,for the buyer, there is a lot of information that is important in evaluating a propertyand that is available only by visiting the property by him- or herself.

Since the late 1990s, home purchasers have made use of the internet real estatelisting services. A survey conducted in Virginia revealed that 82 per cent of the home

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buyers had consulted estate agents, while 61 per cent had checked newspapers and 38per cent friends and relatives (Littlefield et al., 2000, p. 581). Interestingly, 37 per cent ofthe respondents had used the internet while seeking information about the housingmarket. Thus, at that time, the internet was an important source of information eventhough it had not replaced traditional sources such as estate agents. On the other hand,the use of the internet may increase the consultation of other sources. A surveyconducted in North Carolina showed that the internet stimulates the home buyers whowant more information before making a purchasing decision, to gather even moreinformation by personally visiting houses for sale (Palm and Danis, 2002, pp. 542-543).

User-defined relevance criteriaThe above review suggests that in consumer research and information studies so far,the relevance criteria of information sources used by prospective home buyers have notbeen explored in greater detail. Due to this disconnect, the issues of user-definedrelevance criteria will be reviewed by drawing on studies focusing on informationseeking in other contexts.

Major reviews of the issues of relevance suggest that relevance is a complex,multidimensional, context-sensitive and dynamic phenomenon which is affected bycognitive, affective and socio-cultural factors (Borlund, 2003; Cosijn and Ingwersen,2000; Mizzaro, 1997; Saracevic, 2007a, b). The move towards a user-defined concept ofrelevance was initiated in the late 1960s (Barry, 1994, pp. 149-151). The proponents ofthis approach claimed that traditional measures of IR research such as recall andprecision alone are insufficient to describe the phenomena of relevance and that there isa considerable number of subjective and situational variables that affect relevancejudgments.

One of the earliest contributions to research on user-defined relevance is LindaSchamber’s study that examined criteria mentioned by 30 occupational users ofweather information sources in real-life information seeking and use situations (for thesummary of the findings of this study, see Barry and Schamber, 1998, pp. 224-225). Theparticipants were asked to discuss how they evaluated weather information availablein information sources of various types. Altogether 811 mentions of various criteriaused in the evaluation of information sources were received. In another study Barry(1994) explored the criteria mentioned by faculty members and students at LouisianaState University. No pre-given categories were provided to the informants in order todefine the relevance criteria. The content analysis identified 23 categories of relevancecriteria dealing, for example, with information content of the documents and user’ssituation.

Importantly, the above studies indicated that even though the number of individualrelevance criteria is rather high, there is remarkable overlap and redundancy in thecriterion categories. Thus, there seems to be a finite range of user-defined relevancecriteria that are shared across users and situations (Barry and Schamber, 1998, p. 222).From this perspective, the following criteria seem to be particularly important:Depth/Scope/Specificity; Accuracy/Validity; Clarity; Currency; Tangibility; Quality ofsources; Accessibility; Availability of information/ sources of information; Verification,and Affectiveness (Barry and Schamber, 1998, p. 227). Apparently, the abovecategories are able to generalize the major variation of the user-defined relevancecriteria other than the inherent topicality or topical appropriateness. Later studies have

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provided support for the above findings, even though they have emphasized morestrongly the significance of topicality as a relevance criterion (see, for example, Choiand Rasmussen, 2002). Also Maglaughlin and Sonnenwald (2002, p. 335) found thateven though the number of individual criteria of relevance tends to be rather high, theshare of an individual relevance criterion may be rather small. People tend to draw on anumber of individual relevance criteria but only a few of them are used frequently.

Since the late 1990s, the user-defined relevance criteria have also been explored inthe context of Web searching. These studies have focused on diverse groups such aschildren (Hirsh, 1999), scholars (Rieh, 2002), and university students (Tombros et al.,2005; Vakkari and Hakala, 2000). Another study investigated the relevance criteriadefined by people searching for hobby-related information on the Web (Savolainen andKari, 2006). Drawing on videotaped searches and talking aloud data, they specifiedrelevance criteria by which searchers accept (activate) or reject (ignore) hyperlinks.They also specified the criteria by which the searchers judged the relevance ofactivated web pages when making decisions to scrutinize them in more detail or toreject them immediately. Altogether 18 user-defined relevance criteria were identified.Six of them, that is, Accessibility, Affectiveness, Clarity, Currency, Specificity andValidity are included in the “finite list” of relevance criteria defined by Barry andSchamber (1998, p. 227). A total of 12 additional criteria were found:

(1) ability to understand;

(2) cost;

(3) curiosity;

(4) familiarity;

(5) language;

(6) novelty;

(7) reliability;

(8) security;

(9) time constraints;

(10) topicality;

(11) usability; and

(12) variety.

Savolainen and Kari (2006) concluded that web searchers tend to favour relevancecriteria that pertain to information content: Specificity and Topicality exemplify moststrongly criteria of this kind. Also criteria pertaining to information access andorganization of information appeared to be of some significance. Importantly, thefindings provided support to Barry and Schamber’s (1998) conclusion about the finitelist of frequently used relevance criteria.

A more recent example of studies on user-defined relevance is provided by a studyfocusing on environmental activists and unemployed people (Savolainen and Kari,2006). Their source preferences were explored in the context of everyday lifeinformation seeking. However, different from the present study, the seeking ofinformation was not based on a task or problem at hand shared by all interviewees. Incontrast, the environmental activists and unemployed people were free to choose

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critical incidents such as health concerns that had given rise to information seeking.Five major criteria used in the definition of source preferences were found:

(1) content of information;

(2) availability and accessibility of information;

(3) usability of information;

(4) user characteristics; and

(5) situational factors.

These criteria will be discussed in comparative light below while reporting the resultsof the study focusing on the prospective home buyers.

Theoretical frameworkThe literature review provided a useful background for the elaboration of thetheoretical framework of the study. The ways in which people define source preferencecriteria in specific contexts such as purchasing a property may be approached bydrawing on the concept of everyday project (Savolainen, 2008). According to Hektor(2001, pp. 74-76), there are different kinds of everyday projects, generic and specific.The generic projects such as household care are understood to be common to allmembers of a society or community, while the specific projects are characteristic of aparticular life-situation of an individual, for example, a move to a city due to a new job.

The accomplishment of a change project is constituted by the performance of avariety of tasks and the solving of individual problems related to them. In this context,the information seeker has to consider how diverse sources of information would beable to contribute to the furtherance of the project. Since all sources may not be equallyuseful for this purpose, they have to be prioritized by criteria that are found to bemeaningful. The definition of such criteria may be rendered understandable bydrawing on the construct of information source horizon. Importantly, such horizonsindicate how diverse sources are put in order of importance by drawing on sourcepreference criteria of various kinds. The idea of such horizons stems from the studiesconducted by Diane Sonnenwald (1999). She approaches information seeking as anactivity which is located in specific contexts and situations. Sonnenwald proposed thatwithin a context and situation there is an information horizon in which we can act.According to her, an information horizon may consist of a variety of informationresources such as colleagues and web pages.

Savolainen and Kari (2006) developed further by proposing that material objectssuch as books do not per se constitute an information horizon (reference to be added). Intheir view, a horizon of this kind draws on a spatial metaphor. They defined horizon asan imaginary field in which the information seeker may position individualinformation sources in their “own” place according to their perceived significance.Sources which are felt to be most relevant are placed closest to the actor (primary zoneof the horizon), while sources of secondary importance are located farther on(secondary zone). Finally, sources of least importance are placed in the peripheral zone.Information source horizons are created in a broader context which may be defined as aperceived information environment. This construct refers to a set of informationsources of which the actor is aware and of which he or she may have obtained useexperiences over years. When construing an information source horizon, the actor

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judges the relevance of information sources available in the information environmentand selects a set of sources, for example, to clarify a problematic issue that is importantfrom the viewpoint of the everyday project at hand. Thus, due to the selective approachto information sources, the horizon covers only a part of the actual informationenvironment.

Figure 1 illustrates the ways in which the construct of information source horizonmay be used in the definition of source preference criteria in the context of everydayprojects.

Figure 1 suggests that on the basis of the information requirements of an everydayproject, the information seeker considers the opportunities to access potentially usefulinformation sources in the perceived information environment. Then, based on diversesource preference criteria, for example, easy access to information source, theinformation seeker places the sources of which he or she is aware in an order ofimportance within the information source horizon.

To simplify Figure 1, only three major preference areas or zones of informationsource horizon are identified, that is, sources perceived as most significant (Zone 1),

Figure 1.Defining source preferencecriteria in the context ofeveryday projects

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somewhat important (Zone 2) and marginal (Zone 3). Naturally, in individualinformation seeking situations, people may use more than three zones and in somecases, all the information sources may be located in two zones, for example. In addition,an individual may have no stated preference between two sources, for example,internet and newspapers, and they will be equally accessed within a zone. Both sourcepreference criteria and sources placed in the various zones of the information horizonwill be characterized in more detail in the empirical study below. For the sake ofillustration, only two source types (human sources and networked sources) and twopreference criteria (content of information and availability of information) are includedin Figure 1.

Naturally, Figure 1 provides a simplified picture since a considerable number ofpreference criteria may be used when assessing the significance of individual sources.The picture is also simplified because in reality these criteria may be emphasizeddifferently with regard to sources of various types. Thus, the framework depicted inFigure 1 primarily serves the needs of the specification of the empirical research settingdiscussed below. This means that no attempt will be made to test the above frameworkby systematically exploring the connections between the factors specified in Figure 1.The main attention will be paid to how information seekers explain the preferencecriteria for diverse information sources placed on the information source horizon.

Research questions and empirical dataBy drawing on the theoretical framework presented above, the following researchquestions are addressed in the empirical study:

(1) According to what criteria do people prefer information sources in the contextof everyday projects such as seeking for housing opportunities?

(2) How do the prospective home buyers render these criteria as meaningful bycharacterizing the strengths and weaknesses of diverse information sources?

To sharpen the focus of the empirical study, a few limitations appeared to benecessary. First, no attention was paid to the actual processes of information seeking,for example, the ways in which the participants de facto consulted individual sourceswhile pursuing their housing projects. Thus, the study draws on ex post facto accountsof how information sources are selected for seeking information about the housingopportunities. Second, the specific strategies of seeking such information were notstudied. For example, no attention was paid to the selection of search terms used inweb searching. Third, the question of how the use of the preferred sources actuallyaffected source preferences during the housing project was excluded.

The empirical data of the study were gathered by interviews conducted inFebruary-April 2008 in Tampere, Finland. The recruitment of the informants wasrendered difficult because there are no lists of prospective home buyers; on the otherhand, estate agencies do not provide information about their customers. Therefore, inpractice, the only way was to solicit home buyers interested in the study. It wasassumed that the internet would provide the most effective forum for this purposebecause a growing number of people seek information about the housing market fromthe networked services. To this end, a major Finnish company providing web-basedservices for home buyers was contacted. A banner containing an invitation tointerview was placed on the web site of the company. Within four weeks, 15 home

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buyers were recruited for the study. Since one of the interviews was conducted with thespouse of a participant, the total number of participants rose up to 16.

Of the informants, eight were females and eight males. The ages of the informantsvaried between 21-67 years; the average age of the interviewees was 39 years. Overall,the education level of the participants was fairly high since eight of them haduniversity or polytechic degrees. Four participants were students, and two wereretired. The convenience sample was biased in that only one of the informants was afirst-home buyer; other interviewees had bought a property earlier. As a whole,however, this bias was not problematic because the source preference criteria of theabove participant did not markedly differ from those of repeat buyers. Importantly, thedata appeared to be a sufficient number for the needs of the qualitative study. After 12interviews or so it became obvious that the data would be saturated; additionalinterviews would not be able to reveal really new aspects of the information seekingpractices of the participants.

Nine interviews out of 16 were conducted at my office, while seven interviews tookplace at the homes of the participants. On average, the interviews lasted about onehour. All interviews were recorded. In the interviews, the overall goals and the majorevents of the housing project were first discussed. Then, information sources used forthe purposes of the project were characterized in detail. In this context, the intervieweeswere asked to draw the information source horizon map. The empirical studyconducted by Sonnenwald et al. (2001) provided useful ideas for this procedure. First,the participant positioned him- or herself in the middle of the paper. Then he or shemapped the information sources so that the most important sources used during thehousing project were located closest to the mark symbolising the participant and lessimportant ones farther away towards the horizon line of the imaginary field. Afterhaving drawn the map, the interviewees were asked to explain why they positioned thesources as they did. In this context, they were asked to specify their arguments bycharacterizing the strengths and possible weaknesses of every source located in theinformation source horizon map. By means of this elicitation approach, all participantswere able to explain their source preferences in sufficient detail.

The maps were also used to identify the zones of the information source horizon.The maps were analyzed by placing the sources identified into concentric zonesaccording to the distance between the information seeker placed at the center of themap and information sources of various types. Since the drawings were fairly wellspecified and the interview data could be used to support the interpretation, thisresearch task appeared to be quite unambiguous. Even though the participants werenot asked to place the individual sources in two or three major groups, for example, orto delineate boundary lines between the groups of sources, most of them spontaneouslylocated their sources in three major groups: most important, somewhat important, andmarginal.

The interview data were analyzed by means of qualitative data analysis. Thecoding of the data began with the categorization of the source types such as humansources and networked sources included in the mappings of information sourcehorizons, Then, the constant comparative approach was utilized to capture the varietyof preference criteria with regard to these source types (Lincoln and Guba, 1985,pp. 339-344). This method was employed in the following way. First, the individualarticulations of source preference criteria were identified and coded. In the category

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coding, the user-defined source preference criteria identified by Barry and Schamber(1998), and Savolainen and Kari (2006) were employed. In addition, the sourcepreference criteria found in the study on information seeking practices ofenvironmental activists and unemployed people (Savolainen, 2008) were used forthis purpose. By drawing on the above studies, criteria such as Content of information,and Usability were identified. On the other hand, the category coding procedure wasleft open, and the inductive development of new codes for preference criteria wasallowed. However, no new categories were identified this way. Second, attention wasdevoted to how the participants articulated the preference criteria by characterizing thestrengths and weaknesses of individual sources. Finally, the source preferencecategories were compared across source types in order to find out similarities anddifferences in the ways in which source preferences are employed.

While explaining their source preferences, the interviewees mentioned 132 uniquecriteria. They were qualified positively or negatively, depending on whether theparticipants explained the perceived strengths or weaknesses of diverse sources. In theformer case, explanations included positive qualifications like “easily available”, whilein the latter case, the negative qualities of sources were specified by referring to factorssuch as “provides outdated information”. On the other hand, many of the individualcriteria were referred to several times. In order to see the wood for the trees, thenumerous criteria were finally collapsed into five major groups of source preferencecriteria, similar to an earlier study focusing on the information seeking practices ofenvironmental activists and unemployed people (Savolainen, 2008, pp. 127-130). Inorder to enhance the reliability of the study, the original coding was meticulouslychecked by the present author at the end of the research process. Some minorspecifications were made, but as a whole, the original classification appeared to bevalid.

The preference criteria were grouped as follows:. Availability and accessibility of information sources (examples of unique

criteria: the networked service is easily accessible; busy estate agents are noteasily available during the show house hours).

. Content of information (for example, provides comprehensive information;provides biased information).

. Usability of information sources (for example, information is well-organized;information is presented in a confusing way).

. User characteristics (for example, I’m used to checking this networked servicedaily).

. Situational factors of information seeking (for example, luckily coming across anannouncement about a vacancy).

Since the study departs from the viewpoint of the qualitative inquiry, the mainemphasis will be placed on how they explained the preference order specified in themaps of information source horizons. Even though the number of the participants isfairly low, the interview data are rich enough to enable detailed categorization andanalysis of these factors. Since the data are saturated enough, it is possible to draw asufficiently coherent and credible picture of the information source preference criteriaof the prospective home buyers.

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Empirical findingsOverall view of the housing projectsAmong the participants, the schedule of the home purchase project varied to someextent. Four interviewees had already bought a property in the recent past, whileothers were still furthering their project. Most participants had launched the homepurchase project two to four months ago. Notable exceptions from this temporal framewere made by three participants who had considered various housing opportunities forabout three years; this suggests that the home purchase project can last relatively long.In this case, the prospective home buyer is not necessarily searching actively all thetime but the ideas of the type and location of the house are refined gradually.

Ten participants out of 16 preferred a detached house, while others aimed atpurchasing a terrace house or a flat. The preferred size of the apartment varied from 50to 110 square meters. Most interviewees had defined an upper price limit for theproperty ranging from 130,000 to 300,000 euros. Most participants had not changedthese preferences much during the home purchase project. In individual cases,however, there was some variation. Originally, flats may be given the priority but lateron, detached houses can also be considered even though they tend to be moreexpensive than flats. Similarly, the home buyer may be willing to invest somewhatmore money in a new property than originally planned if a really attractive homeserving the needs of the family has been found.

Information source horizons of the prospective home buyersThe participants included 22 unique information sources altogether in the mappings ofinformation source horizons. In order to see the wood for the trees, the numeroussources were collapsed into a few major groups similar to the earlier study focusing oninformation seeking practices of environmental activists and unemployed people(Savolainen, 2008). In this way, the following source types[1] were identified:

. Human sources (examples of individual sources: friends and acquaintances;parents).

. Printed media (for example, newspapers; free newspapers listing apartments forsale).

. Networked sources (for example, web sites provided by building companies).

. Organizational sources (established sources drawing on professional knowledge,for example, estate agents).

. Other sources (miscellaneous sources other than the above source types, forexample, housing fairs).

Since many of the unique sources were mentioned by several participants, the totalnumber of information sources mentioned rose up to 91. The number of sources usedby the participants ranged from 3 to 11; on average, 5.7 sources were consulted perinformant. The most popular source appeared to be Etuovi.com[2] (web-based servicefor prospective home byers), since all participants (16) had used it. In addition,Aamulehti[3] (local newspaper) (14), Oikotie.fi[4] (web-based service for prospectivehome buyers (10) and Etuovi.com (bimonthly free newspaper listing apartments forsale (9) were popular. However, 14 out of the 22 unique sources were mentioned only

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once or twice. Thus, the distribution of sources exhibited a few dominating sources anda long tail of sources that were seldom mentioned.

We may specify the picture of the source preferences by characterizing theinformation source horizons (see Table I). As noted above, the horizons are divided intothree zones so that Zone 1 includes sources that were deemed most important, whileZone 2 indicates sources of some importance and Zone 3 sources that were perceived asmarginal.

The networked sources were strongly preferred, as indicated by the distribution ofsources placed in Zone 1. In Zone 2, printed media were most frequent. In addition,networked sources and organizational sources like estate agents were often placed inthe intermediate zone. The distribution of sources in Zone 3 indicates that printedmedia in particular were seen as fairly marginal, while networked sources were quiteseldom placed in this field. Overall, Table I suggests that the prospective home buyersstrongly favour networked sources while the perceived importance of sources of othertypes varies. Printed media and organizational sources complement the networkedsources. In addition, other people are valued as complementary sources of information.

To compare, the information source preferences of the prospective home buyersdiffer to some extent from the preferences defined by environmental activists andunemployed people (Savolainen, 2008, pp. 125-127). Among environmental activists,human sources were preferred most strongly, followed by networked sources, printedmedia and organizational sources. Similar to prospective home buyers, theunemployed people prioritized networked sources while seeking problem-specificinformation. Even though the nature of problems or tasks at hand giving rise toinformation seeking varied among the above groups of people, all of them shared astrong preference for the networked sources.

To elaborate the quantitative picture, we may review the criteria by which theprospective home buyers preferred diverse sources (Table II).

Independent of source type, the major emphasis was placed on the content ofinformation. Availability and accessibility of information of sources was a relativelysignificant criterion while judging the relevance of organizational sources, printedmedia, and miscellaneous sources. The networked sources were seldom preferred bythis criterion. This is probably due to that the participants were active users of the websites provided by the estate agencies; thus, the availability of networked informationwas taken as a self-evident starting point of information seeking. User characteristicssuch as habitualized checking of housing information were associated with the

Zone 1(n ¼ 25)

Zone 2(n ¼ 35)

Zone 3(n ¼ 31)

Networked sources 88.0 20.0 19.4Printed media 12.0 48.6 45.2Organizational sources 0 17.1 12.8Human sources 0 5.7 19.7Other sources 0 8.6 3.2Total 100.0 100.0 100.0

Note: n ¼ 91

Table I.Percentage distribution of

source types in zones ofinformation source

horizons amongprospective home buyers

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preference for the networked and printed sources in particular. Usability was mostoften referred to while judging the relevance of the networked sources. Finally,situational factors were seldom mentioned; they figured most clearly while preferringhuman sources such as acquintancies that occasionally had provided usefulinformation about apartments for sale.

To compare, content of information was the primary source preference criterionacross diverse source types among environmental activists and unemployed people,too (Savolainen, 2008, pp. 129-130). Availability and accessibility of informationsources also figured quite significantly as a preference criterion among the abovegroups. The criteria pertaining to user characteristics and usability of informationsources were referred to quite seldom. This suggests that while explaining theirpreference criteria, people devote the main attention to the perveived usefulness of theinformation content, as well as the availability and accessibility of information sources.

The analysis of the source preference criteria of the prospective home buyersindicated that the judgments primarily focused on the positive qualities of sources. Of132 unique preference criteria, 76.5 per cent were associated with perceived strengthslike “broad coverage” while 23.5 per cent of the criteria indicated the weaknesses ofsources, for example, “unrealiability”. Overall, the networked sources were assessedvery positively since only about 9 per cent of unique preference criteria indicatedweaknesses of these sources. Similarly, human sources were seen in a positive lightbecause only 7 per cent of the explanations of source preferences referred to negativeaspects. In the case of other sources, the share of positive qualities was 80 per cent.

Printed media exhibited a different profile since 45 per cent of the unique criteriaindicated deficiencies of these sources. Organizational sources were even morestrongly associated with negative qualities since about 54 per cent of the criteria usedby the participants indicated diverse weaknesses of these sources. As expected, thecritical voices were most frequent in cases where sources were placed in Zone 3. Theassessment of sources placed in the intermediate zone indicated ambivalentorientation. For example, a free newspaper listing apartments for sale can be foundas easily available; on the other hand, it may be perceived as deficient due to theoutdated information.

Qualitative picture of source preference criteriaWe may specify the quantitative overview of the source preferences of the prospectivehome buyers by drawing on qualitative content analysis of the interview data. In thefollowing, the source preference will be discussed by source types, beginning from the

Networked(n ¼ 63)

Printed(n ¼ 40)

Human(n ¼ 13)

Organiz(n ¼ 13)

Other(n ¼ 5)

Content of information 39.7 55.0 84.6 77.0 40.0Availability and accessibility 11.1 20.0 0 23.0 20.0User characteristics 15.9 5.0 0 0 0Usability 31.7 15.0 0 0 0Situational 1.6 5.0 15.4 0 40.0Total 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0

Note: n ¼ 132

Table II.Source preference criteriaby source type amongprospective home buyers

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networked sources and ending with organizational sources. Because the role of sourcesof other types such as housing fairs remained very marginal, they will not be discussedin the present investigation.

Networked servicesThe quantitative overview revealed that the networked sources were most stronglypreferred among the prospective home buyers. In most cases, the preference criteriadrew on the content of information. User characteristics and usability were alsomentioned fairly often as preference criteria.

One of the positive factors qualifying content of information is the rich variety ofinformation provided by the networked sources. One of the participants (P-14)[5] felt thatEtuovi.com and Oikotie are particularly useful because these web-based services provide alot of relevant information about apartments for sale. According to him, these services“pull together information about all housing market”. Etuovi.com primarily providesaccess to information about apartments sold through diverse estate agencies while Oikotiealso publishes announcements about apartments that individual people offer for sale. Theabove services have occupied a dominant position in the Finnish housing market. One ofthe informants (P-2) felt that Etuovi.com in particular has grown into an “institution”because it covers the major part of apartments for sale in Finland. Broad and multifacetedsupply of information was seen as a major strength of the networked sources:

The amount of information is bigger because you may find floor plans and such kind ofthings there. In addition, one of the strengths of web-based services like Etuovi.com andOikotie is that they provide access to maps and satellite photos that may be of interest if youdo not know the district. We used these services while searching for housing and theyprovided us with some added value (P-1).

The dominating market position of the above web services was reflected in the sourcepreferences in that Etuovi.com in particular was perceived as a self-evident first choiceamong many participants. They believed that the information needed would simply bemost effectively retrieved by accessing this service.

Second, the networked sources were assessed positively by referring to the specificityof information. Networked sources provide access to detailed information about the typeand structure of the apartment, its floor plan, the milieu of the house, services available inthe district, and the renovation completed, for example. However, some intervieweespointed out that certain web-based services lack sufficient specificity. For this reason,they were placed in Zone 2 or 3 in the information source horizon:

Some estate agencies should be more specific when they provide information on the net. Forexample, they should indicate exactly whether oil heating is available for all individual unitsof a terrace house. In addition, the floor plan is very important. It is a mug’s game if there arethree photos of the living room but no pictures of the bedroom (P-13).

Third, a major factor qualifying the information content of the networked sources iscurrency. These sources were regarded as particularly competetive in this regardcompared to printed media providing housing listing:

The networked service is very fast. If an estate agent contacts a customer and the apartmentis put up for sale, you may have information about that particular apartment on the netwithin two hours. However, it may take one week before people may read the sameinformation in a newspaper (P-12).

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Availability and accessibility of the networked information sources were notmentioned particularly often as a preference criterion. This is mainly due to the factthat the participants perceived the availability of the internet as a self-evidentopportunity. However, insufficient supply of apartments for sale on the net may beinterpreted negatively in terms of availability of information. In this case, a source islocated in the intermediate or marginal zone of the information source horizon:

I tend to consult Mikko.fi (web-based service) more than Aamulehti (printed newspaper) butanyway, I will place Mikko.fi in the second zone because Mikko provides information about afew apartments only. This web service is based on auction. People sell, buy and exchangethings there but seldom apartments, however (P-3).

In some cases, the preference for a networked source was grounded on a usercharacteristic such as familiarity with web-based services for prospective homebuyers. One of the interviewees (P-15) crystallized his preference criterion by sayingthat “l live so intensively in the networked world that I seldom use other sources”. Formany participants, the regular checking of the newest announcements about houses forsale had become a daily habit particularly in cases in which the home buyer made useof the “house watch”. It is a special alert service informing about properties that meetthe criteria defined by the customer. The criteria may indicate the preferred size andtype of the property, as well as the preferred district and the maximum price of thehouse.

On the other hand, the opportunities provided by the house watch services wereassociated with the employment of usability as a source preference criterion. Often,usability of web-based services was qualified by expressions such as “handy to checkinformation”. However, an even more important characteristic of usability appeared tobe the opportunity to conduct focused searches by ticking alternative search criteriaavailable in the graphical interface of the web-based services. Similar to the housewatch service, the searcher may create his or her search profile and refine it as thehome purchase project goes on:

Etuovi.com is useful because you may sort properties for sale according to square meters, age,price and location. If you search for properties in the newspaper, you may face difficultieseven though you would be sharp and have a good memory. You may find similar propertiesthere but which one is most economic in terms of square meters? If you consult Etuovi.com,you may see immediately that this house is bigger but cheaper, or that another house issmaller but more expensive (P-3).

In a few cases, the usability of networked sources was judged negatively. The majorcritique was addressed to the clumsiness of the interface or technical problems faced inthe use of digital maps.

While judging the importance of the networked sources, situational factors were feltto be insignificant as a whole. Only one of the interviewees drew on these factors whileexplaining his source preferences:

The use of this particular service was decisive for the purchase. This is a networked fleamarket organized by the University of Tampere. I once visited it and to my big surprise, therehappened to be a suitable flat for sale, two rooms and a kitchen. It was really miraculous!That’s the way we bumped into the flat we finally purchased (P-16).

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Printed mediaNewspapers and free newspapers specialized in housing listings were fairly popularamong the prospective home buyers, even though they were most often used as sourcescomplementary to the internet. Similar to the networked sources, the main preferencecriterion was the content of information.

The newspaper announcements were seen as useful because they provideinformation that may not be available on networked services like Etuovi.com.Importantly, major newspapers such as Aamulehti provide a special section everyweekend about properties for sale:

I found the short announcements published in Aamulehti very significant because individualpeople tried to sell their houses without the help of estate agencies. I checked them all andmade notes about the most important candidates. In the newspaper, the supply of propertiesis quite large because the estate agencies have their own “lodges” there (P-16).

Printed media were also found useful in that they may provide an access point to thenetworked sources. This connection was most explicit in the case of the printednewspaper published bimonthly by Etuovi.com. The newspaper provides housinglistings, containing about 60 pages that inform about hundreds of properties for sale inthe Tampere region. A newspaper announcement includes a code number givingaccess to more detailed information about the same property on the web site ofEtuovi.com. Therefore, printed media may function as a gateway to networked sources.

Somewhat surprisingly, the judgments of the content of information tended toaggravate towards the weaknesses rather than strengths of printed media. This ismainly because printed media have fairly limited possibilities to provide specific andupdated information about the housing market. Many interviewees also believed thatprinted media cannot compete with the internet in the provision of illustrative materialsuch as photos. Therefore, printed media were often seen as secondary. The newspaperannouncements typically contain only a few lines per property and the photographicmaterial is often of low quality. In addition, to save the publication cost, the estateagencies tend to offer very little information about the housing company[6] and themilieu of the apartment. Thus, the prospective home buyer has to take pains to consultadditional sources:

The newspaper announcements tend to be very simple. You may learn that there are 4 roomsand a kitchen. Then, there is a spefication of square metres and phone number, but no streetaddress and photos. So, you have to call and ask for details. Then, it may turn out that thehouse is located in a district you don’t like at all (P-11).

Finally, the content of information provided by printed media can be outdated. Inparticular, this is a major problem for free newspapers only issued twice a month.

Availability and accessibility of information sources was seldom mentioned as apreference criterion of printed media. Overall, the strengths of printed media wereemphasized while drawing on this criterion. Those having subscribed to a newspapercan easily access it because it is delivered to the home. Free newspapers that providehousing listing, most notably Etuovi.com and Kotiavain[7] are widely delivered tohomes every second weekend; in addition, they are freely available on the stands in thelobbies of the supermarkets, for example. The broad availability makes it probable thatmost prospective home buyers at least browse them.

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User characteristics such as habitual use of printed newspapers also figured as asource criterion. The daily newspaper is read in the morning and the announcements ofproperties for sale are checked routinely. One of the interviewees (P-10) confessed thatthe printed newspaper issued by Etuovi.com tends to ”hook” her and she likes to read itcarefully every time it has been delivered to her home.

However, usability of printed media appeared to be a more significant preferencecriterion. One of the strengths of the newspaper is the user-friendly and ergonomic“interface”:

It is somewhat difficult to read text on the screen and I find it tiresome more generally. Whenyou open a newspaper, you may see at a glance that these properties are expensive, youcannot afford them. So, there are strong points in newspapers related to readability. Eventhough there are not so many photos about individual houses, you may sort the interestingones more rapidly. (P-2)

Another strength of the printed journal is that the reader may make personal notes bycircling promising home candidates with a pen while browsing the pages. This may becarried out easily in cases where the supply of properties is organized by the type of theproperty (flats, detached houses, terrace houses) or by districts, for example. However,the usability of printed media was also criticized. For example, the organization ofinformation may sometimes leave much to be desired:

Diverse estate agencies employ different ways to classify properties for sale. Some agenciesgroup them by locality, others by type of the property, while some agencies have no logic atall. This is frustrating if you want to find something relevant there because it is a mismash ofsome kind (P-2).

Similar to the networked sources, situational factors apperared to be marginal as asource preference criterion. Only one of the participants (P-2 pointed out that situationalfactors had slightly affected his source preferences. A free newspaper occasionallypicked up from the local supermarket had offered information about vacancies eventhough as a whole this source was not regarded as particularly important.

Human sourcesHuman sources such as friends were valued as complementary sources of information.Again, the content of information was the primary preference criterion. Overall, humansources were assessed in a positive light because other people can offer valuable tipsabout suitable apartments for sale. The contact network may support one’s housingsearch project considerably. Other people can provide information that is not availablefrom estate agents, for example. Long-time dwellers in particular may offer usefulinformation about the housing company, future renovation needs and availability ofpublic services in the district.

As a whole, relatives and friends were the most popular sources that were consultedby the interviewees. Relatives and friends having professional knowledge about thehousing issues were seen as particularly valuable sources of information:

One of my relatives is a building engineer, we have drawn on his advice. In fact, he once“rescued” us because he was able to identify the risks involved in a house. He explained whythat particular house would not be optimal for us, even though we were highly enthustiasticabout it. He was able to pose specific questions to the estate agent because he was not naivelike us (P-2).

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Parents and friends may also contribute by participating in the show house organizedby the estate agent. Sometimes, however, information content provided by humansources was assessed critically because the advice offered by parents or friends can beconflicting or biased. The advice may draw all too strongly on their personal liking forapartments of specific kinds. In a few occasions, useful information about housingopportunities had been obtained occasionally from neighbours, for example. As awhole, however, situational factors were seen as marginal while judging theimportance of human sources.

Organizational sourcesOrganizational sources were typically placed in the intermediate or peripheral zone ofthe information source horizon. Therefore, at best, these sources providedcomplementary information for the prospective home buyers. The repertoire of theorganizational sources was narrow since only two unique souces of this type werementioned: estate agents and housing managers[8].

Again, content of information was the main criterion by which the strengths orweaknesses of organizational sources was assessed. The experiences obtained from theuse of estate agency services varied considerably. Some of the interviewees praised theexpertise of individual estate agents:

In our view, he did good work. We liked his approach, even though there was a lot of salespitch included. However, he presented things in a relatively objective way and we got theimpression that he really tried to help people to find suitable properties (P-1).

Importantly, during the show home hours, the estate agents can provide the visitorswith more detailed printed information about the apartment. They may distributedocuments like the minutes of the meeting of the board of the housing company. Suchinformation is not available on the web sites of estate agencies.

On the other hand, the content of information available in organizational sourceswas criticized. As the sales pitch often dominates, the estate agents may remain silenton issues that would make the customer hesitant about the purchase:

On the basis of my experiences, estate agents don’t know the properties they are sellingparticularly well. They just say: please, call the housing manager. It turned out, after we hadpurchased our current flat that the estimation of the monthly maintenance cost is inaccurate.So, you have to be mistrustful of the agents and chase up all things (P-14).

Finally, availability and accessiblity of information sources was referred to as acriterion by which the usefulness of organizational sources was assessed. Again, bothpositive and critical evaluations were presented. In some cases, the estate agents werepreferred because they were easily available through e-mail and phone. On the otherhand, they were criticized for their haste. Therefore, the agents may fail to concentrateon questions asked by prospective home buyers during the busy show house hours inparticular.

DiscussionThe present article contributes to the study of user-defined relevance judgment byelaborating the picture of source preference criteria in the context of accomplishingeveryday projects. The search for housing was chosen as an empirical example of suchprojects. An attempt was made to show that the source preference criteria ultimately

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spring from the requirements posed by such projects and that there are no sourcepreferences in a general or abstract sense.

The study showed that networked sources are very popular among the prospectivehome buyers. Sources of other types such as the printed media, human sources andorganizational sources were mainly used to complement the networked sources. Overall,the findings confirm the results of earlier studies on everyday life information seeking(Savolainen, 2008). The above study focusing on environmental activists andunemployed people revealed strong preference for networked and human sources. Therole of sources of other types varied, depending on the problem or task at hand. Thefindings of the present study also provide support for the view that despite the growingpopularity of the internet, information seekers have not rejected traditional sources suchas printed newspapers. The new and traditional sources tend to be used in acomplementary way while pursuing everyday projects (see Nguyen and Western, 2006).

However, the major contribution of the present study is that it further validates theempirical picture of user-defined relevance judgment in real world contexts. First, thestudy provides support for the assumption that the primary source preference criteriaused by a variety of users are finite in number (Barry and Schamber, 1998; Saracevic,2007b, p. 2130). Similar to the environmental activists and unemployed people, fivemajor preference criteria were identified. Content of information appeared to be theprimary source preference criterion among the prospective home buyers. Thisconfirms the assumption of the significance of topicality as a major criterion ofrelevance (Saracevic, 2007b, p. 2130; Xu and Chen, 2006). More specifically, peopleprefer sources that are able to provide a sufficiently broad overall picture of the issuesrelevant to an everyday project. On the other hand, they prefer sources that providesufficiently detailed and updated information of specific issues at hand. Hence thecentrality of the content of information across information sources of various types.

Second, the study showed that the significance of other preference criteria tend tovary between sources of various types. Availability and accessibility of informationsources figure most clearly while judging the usefulness of printed media andorganizational sources. This is mainly because in the comparative light sources of thistype tend to lack the instant availability and accessibility that is perceived as an inbuiltquality of the internet. Since printed media and organizational sources cannotsuccessfully compete with the internet by this criterion, they tend to be judged asinferior to the networked sources. Apparently, this comparative aspect may becomeeven more critical as the significance of instant and easy access to information will beemphasized in information seeking more generally.

The empirical findings also suggest that usability of information is mainly referredto while judging the relevance of the networked sources and printed media.Interestingly, by this criterion, both source types may be preferred by positive qualitieslike “easy to browse”. On the other hand, the usability of these source types may alsobe judged by negative qualities like “disorganized”. As the empirical findings suggest,however, usability tends to be less significant than content of information. Whilejudging the overall relevance of the networked sources and printed media, theassessments concerning their usability are secondary; the content of information isdecisive. The same applies to the criterion of user characteristics like habitualizedchecking of a web site. The habit is secondary to the content of information providedby a source. Finally, situational factors like bumping into a useful source were seldom

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mentioned by the participants. This is mainly due to the fact that these criteria werenot constructed during real information seeking situations. The interviewees were nolonger able to recall all situational details of the information-seeking process, eventhough it had occurred quite recently.

The present study also showed that while explaining their preference criteria peopletend to place more emphasis on the perceived strengths than weaknesses of diversesources. Positive qualities like the provision of rich, detailed and updated informationcontent were especially associated with the networked sources. Sources of other typeswere also judged positively since they exhibit specific strengths like good ergonomy.However, printed media and organizational sources in particular were subject to lessfavourable assessments, too, and they were often regarded as outdated or biased. Apossible explanation for the fact that people tend to emphasize positive rather thannegative aspects of sources is that the value of an individual source is primarily judgedon the basis of how it has served the goals of the home purchase project. The mainattention is paid information sources that have in fact facilitated rather than impededthe attainment of such goals. This assumption is supported by the empirical findingsof the study focusing on information source horizons of environmental activists andthe unemployed people (Savolainen, 2008). They were most motivated to explain whyan information source was found as helpful in problem solving, for example, whileinformation sources regarded as unhelpful were given marginal attention.

Since the study draws on a relatively small convenience sample recruited through aweb-based service, the findings cannot be generalized to prospective home buyers as awhole. In addition, the sample is biased towards repeat buyers and active users of theinternet. For example, elderly home buyers favouring personal visits to estate agenciesmay weigh their source preference somewhat differently. However, with the growingpopularity of networked services in society, the significance of the use versus non-useof the internet will decrease as an explaining factor of source preferences. This view issupported by a recent survey conducted by Statistics Finland (2008) revealing thatinternet use is regular since 78 per cent of the population get online weekly in Finland.

The research findings have implications for the design of web-based services forprospective home buyers. They would benefit from more specific information aboutfactors that influence the decision to accept or reject a candidate property. Thesefactors include average price levels of similar properties in individual districts,renovations made and future renovation needs, as well as the availability of publicservices. Prospective home buyers also seem to place growing emphasis on theavailability of high quality photos of the apartment. The availability of sufficientlydetailed data saves time and cost since the house hunters can avoid unnecessary visitsto show house events or troublesome seeking of more detailed information fromhousing managers, for example.

ConclusionThere is a need to further elaborate the picture of source preference criteria of real usersin everyday contexts. It would be particularly intriguing to explore whether diversepreference criteria are emphasized differently during the accomplishment of aneveryday project. Thus, compared to the overall picture based on the analysis ofinformation source horizons, the processual approach would yield a more dynamicview on the construction of the source preferences.

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Notes

1. The category of “human sources” is ambiguous in that in the final analysis other sourcestypes discussed in the study, that is, broadcast media, printed media, networked sources andorganizational sources may also be classified as “human” because they originate from thecognitive activities of human beings (see Savolainen, 2008, pp. 144-145). However, to draw amore nuanced picture, human sources are discussed as an individual category. This refers tonon-professional sources that provide information about housing opportunities through thespoken word, more specifically, by face-to-face contacts, by telephone or by private e-mailmessages. Actors typically providing information of this kind include friends, acquaintancesand family members. “Organizational sources” refer to actors who as providers of oral orwritten information draw on their professional role and status such as certified estate agent.In the present study, however, the organizational sources available in the internet such asweb sites of estate agencies and building companies were classified as networked sources.This is mainly due to the interest in exploring in more detail how the networked sourceshave established their position in people’s information source horizons.

2. The Finnish word means “front door”.

3. The Finnish word means “morning paper”.

4. The Finnish word means “shortcut”.

5. In the code, P refers to Person, and the number identifies an individual interviewee.

6. Housing company is a legal entity – usually a corporation – that owns real estate,consisting of one or more residential buildings. Each shareholder in the legal entity isgranted the right to occupy one housing unit, sometimes subject to an occupancy agreement,which is similar to a lease.

7. The Finnish word means “home key”.

8. A housing manager manages housing and related services on behalf of housing companies.The role involves keeping in regular contact with tenants, looking after rental income, anddealing with repairs.

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Sonnenwald, D.H., Wildemuth, B. and Harmon, G.T. (2001), “A research method to investigateinformation seeking using the concept of information horizons: an example from a study oflower socio-economic students’ information seeking behaviour”, The New Review ofInformation Behaviour Research, Vol. 2, pp. 65-86.

Statistics Finland (2008), “Number of internet users up from the year before”, available at: www.stat.fi/til/sutivi/2008/sutivi_2008_2008-08-25_tie_001_en.html (accessed 23 October 2008).

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Further reading

Chen, C. and Hernon, P. (1982), Information Seeking: Assessing and Anticipating User Needs,Neal-Schuman, New York, NY.

Corresponding authorReijo Savolainen can be contacted at: [email protected]

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