April 2011

Favourite research sources are like favourite recipes. The ones you turn to time and time again with confidence in the results.

Whether they are news aggregators, market research sources or search tools preferred research sources make it to the favourites list if they are:

Up to date

• Currency of information is vital, and users need to be able to easily ascertain if the information is up to date.

Quick & easy to use

• Both easy to learn for new users and cater for experienced users’ advanced searching requirements.
• Standard features users look for in research sources include ease of searching, selecting results, saving and emailing plus an array of alerting features for receiving and reading updates online on a range of mobile devices.

Reliable sources

• Researchers want to be able to cite sources that are credible and trusted.
• Favourite sources are selective in the information sources they refer to.

Affordable

• Free, low cost, pay per use or reasonable subscription prices go a long way to helping users add a source to their favourites list.
• Pricing models need to suit a variety of ways that users search for and use the information they find.