Comments on: 1 in 4 Users Can’t Google http://scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org/2008/05/15/24-failure-rate-using-google/ What's Hot & What's Cooking in Scholarly Publishing - from the Society for Scholarly Publishing Mon, 13 Feb 2012 05:01:15 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.com/ By: Toby http://scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org/2008/05/15/24-failure-rate-using-google/#comment-311 Fri, 23 May 2008 15:54:47 +0000 http://scholarlykitchen.wordpress.com/?p=93#comment-311 I think what this may actually be saying is “1 in 4 users can’t use the browser’s address bar”. I recently attended a pre-conference workshop at a hotel, and the next day assumed that the conference was at the same hotel. The concierge informed me that it wasn’t, and someone else had just asked him the same question. He was standing in front of a computer so I said, “why don’t you Google it, and then we’ll both know”. He popped open a browser window, and it came up with the MSN search page. The concierge typed “Google” into the MSN search, then used Google to find the conference.

I know many people who consider themselves to be fairly competent computer users, but would be completely lost if I deleted the shortcuts from their desktop. Similarly, I suspect that many users have Google on their browser toolbar, or set as their homepage. I have also noticed that a substantial percentage of those people, when asked to go to “somewebsite.com” will type the URL into Google, not the browser’s address bar.

]]> By: bookhling http://scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org/2008/05/15/24-failure-rate-using-google/#comment-269 Fri, 16 May 2008 03:59:41 +0000 http://scholarlykitchen.wordpress.com/?p=93#comment-269 That’s actually a very sound analysis of the situation I think. I refuse to believe that the quarter of advanced internet users “can’t” find/use google.

I presume that this study was aimed at North American internet users?

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