Designing a citation-sensitive research tool: an initial study of browsing-specific information needs

Practitioners and researchers need to stay up-to-date with the latest advances in their fields, but the constant growth in the amount of literature available makes this task increasingly difficult. We investigated the literature browsing task via a user requirements analysis, and identified the information needs that biomedical researchers commonly encounter in this application scenario. Our analysis reveals that a number of literature-based research tasks are preformed which can be served by both generic and contextually tailored preview summaries. Based on this study, we describe the design of an implemented literature browsing support tool which helps readers of scientific literature decide whether or not to pursue and read a cited document. We present findings from a preliminary user evaluation, suggesting that our prototype helps users make relevance judgements about cited documents.