Example searchs and writeups


Question to be answered: "Can I walk from the train station in Bath, England to the Bath Spa Hotel?"

Semi-experienced WWW searcher
Place: Gaithersburg, MD USA
Date:  March 3, 1998
Time:  9:15 AM (local time)

Started search on Altavista

Query: +Bath, England

Clicked on #22 "hotels in Bath, England"

	Gave up after 4 mins and no results.

Clicked on #23

	After 3 mins, error msg about broken pipe.

Revised query: +Bath, England "Bath Spa Hotel"

Clicked on #1 "Bath Spa Hotel... 10 minutes walk from centre of Bath..."

	No further info on how far train station is from center or hotel.
        Back.

Clicked on #2 "Bath Spa Hotel (Bath)"

	Clicked on "map page"

		Lots of clicking on various sections of map to see where 
		the station is in relation to the hotel. Found both but no 
		scale on maps. Back, back.

Clicked on #4 "The Bath Spa Hotel" url: www.bathspahotel.com/.....

	Picture of some rooms. No way to pop up. Back

Truncated url after .com and pressed return

Clicked on image on hotel's homepage

	Clicked on "Location"

	Eureka !!  "Bath Spa station is about one mile from the hotel" 
Novice WWW searcher
Place: Gaithersburg, MD USA
Date:  March 4, 1998
Time:  9:15 PM (local time)

Started search on Altavista

    Query: maps of Bath, England

Clicked on #1 "Excite Travel: Bath, England" (Maps listed in features)

    Clicked on "maps":  this brought up choices around the world
    Clicked on "United Kingdom": this brought up small-scale UK map
    Clicked on approximate area of Bath: this brought up map of England
    Map would not go further: deadend

Clicked on #3 "Bed and Breakfast in Bath"
    core dump

Started search on Yahoo

Clicked on "Maps"
    deadend: only U.S 

Clicked on "Travel"
    deadend: not clear where to click next

Started search on Excite

    Query: maps of Bath, England

Clicked on #1 "Excite Travel: Bath, England"

    Did NOT click on "maps"
    Clicked on "General Information"
    Clicked on "Travel and Tourism; Welcome to Bath"
    Clicked on "City/Street Zoom"
    Clicked on "Central City"
    Clicked on several different quadrants of 9 quadrant map to find
      Railway Station and Bath Spa Hotel; no distances given on map
    Clicked on Bath Spa Hotel link
    Clicked on several sublinks, none of which gave the information

Gave up and took taxi from station to hotel
Experienced WWW searcher (lucky too)
Place: Gaithersburg, MD USA
Date:  March 4, 1998
Time:  0:15 AM (local time)

Guessed the hotel might have its own url and assumed .com convention

Typed in "www.bathspahotel.com"

Clicked on image on hotel's homepage

	Clicked on "Location"

	Eureka !!  "Bath Spa station is about one mile from the hotel" 

National Institute of Standards and Technology Home
Last updated: Tuesday, 01-Aug-2000 07:03:44 MDT

Date created: Monday, 31-Jul-00