Search Survey

Have you had trouble finding information while researching a problem? I want to hear your story. I am conducting research on documentation quality, particularly online documentation, and am currently interested in how well searches work.

Fill out this form if you had to look at three or more sources of information (books, web pages, etc.) to find the answer to a question. I'm interested in both print publications and online resources.

Tips on filling out form
This form requests a lot of details: the search strings you entered, as well as the names or URLs of documents you looked at. It's useful to open another browser tab or browser window and step through the online searches you did while filling out the form.
Privacy notice
I will cite details about search terms and documents in articles and conference presentations, but will not reveal your name or contact information and will not use this information for any purpose except my research on documentation.

Feel free to contact me with questions about the survey or my research in general.

Andy Oram, Editor at O'Reilly Media

Please describe briefly what problem you had and what information you were looking for initially.
Optional: Please enter any other observations you have about this search.
Optional: Tell me any problems you had using this survey.
Optional: Enter your contact information, which I will use only to contact you about this survey.
Finished with this search.

If you cannot get the page to accept your input, please send me email at user name andyo, domain oreilly.com.