Search String Analysis from a Socio-economic Perspective

Search string analysis has implications for developing better designs of Web interfaces and search engines. It is expected that millions of new users from Africa will enter the Internet arena in the not so distant future. Most of these users will be from countries with a low socio-economic standing. In order to determine the effect of socio-economic standing on the search behaviour of grade ten learners, their search characteristics were analysed. This study found that there is a difference in the search behaviour between novice users with a low socio-economic standing and those with a high socio-economic standing. These differences, however, only lasted for the first few sessions, where after all users showed the same search behaviour.