Library and Information Science

Brittain stated that “from a methodological point of view, the field of user study is weak”

The same or almost the same opinion has been repeated year by year in the volumes of the Annual Review of Information Science and Technology. It is said that the crucial reasons for this are the unsuccessful attempt to build and accumulate new knowledge on the past accomplishments and the inability to make use of past mistakes. In addition, we can point out methodological unbalance, that is, a few methods are being used without logical consistency and adequecy while others are completely ignored.

The aims of the present paper are: 1) to discuss the methodological phase of user studies, 2) to examine the methods and techniques of user studies, 3) to compare and evaluate four major methods according to research accomplishments, and 4) to discuss some of the future problems.

This is not an exhaustive discussion of methodology, but a guide or a clue to the future discussion on research method.