Time-line interviews and inductive content analysis: their effectiveness for exploring cognitive behaviors

In studies of information users' cognitive behaviors, it is widely recognized that users' perceptions of their information problem situations play a major role. Time-line interviewing and inductive content analysis are two research methods that, used together, have proven extremely useful for exploring and describing users' perceptions in various situational contexts. This article describes advantages and disadvantages of the methods using examples from a study of users' criteria for evaluation in a multimedia context.