End-User Update 2008: New Findings from Outsell’s User Profile Research

User-centric solutions are the name of the game in today’s information marketplace. Building an information solution or environment that speaks personally to a user in a specific role or industry and mirrors that user’s workflow requires targeted marketing and product development. While it takes extra time and effort to create user profiles and formulate personas that represent specific user segments, the resulting solutions will engender greater loyalty and, as a result, offer a greater return on investment. This report provides a foundation for understanding users’ information profiles and offers an idea of the kinds of user profile data available in Outsell’s Information Markets & Users Database. It contains Outsell data revealing:

- Trends in how users access information and what new technologies they are adopting;
- User attitudes toward free vs. fee-based information services;
- Failure rates for internet searches compared to intranet searches;
- Trends in average time spent gathering and analyzing information;
- Top obstacles to getting information, and most valued library roles;
- Imperatives for information managers who want to offer user-centric solutions.