Method

Methodology used in the “Keep Found Things Found” (KFTF) project to study how people organize project-related information were provided by Wiliam Jones, and were used in modified form to collect data for this study.

Seven participants were observed during a period of twelve weeks working on current projects to show how they structure encountered information, and how these structures changes over time. The study consisted of seven sessions with each participant, divided into introductory sessions (to get the participants general usage with information to know, and to find and be introduced to a suitable project to observe), intervening sessions (to observe changes in structure of their information collections concerning the selected project), and final sessions (to wrap up, and to compare results with a chosen back-up project to avoid tempering findings).

The observed projects were either work-related or study-related or private, and varied from small to huge projects, had moderate to sophisticated difficulties, and familiarity of the participants varied from familiar to unknown.
Planing a wedding, developing a web site, introduce a new product to a new market, and writing a research thesis are some examples of the observed projects.