Search (37 results, page 2 of 2)

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Abstract

Dyslexic users often do not exhibit spelling and reading skills at a level required to perform effective search. To explore whether autocomplete functions reduce the impact of dyslexia on information searching, 20 participants with dyslexia and 20 controls solved 10 predefined tasks in the search engine Google. Eye-tracking and screen-capture documented the searches. There were no significant differences between the dyslexic students and the controls in time usage, number of queries, query lengths, or the use of the autocomplete function. However, participants with dyslexia made more misspellings and looked less at the screen and the autocomplete suggestions lists while entering the queries. The results indicate that although the autocomplete function supported the participants in the search process, a more extensive use of the autocomplete function would have reduced misspellings. Further, the high tolerance for spelling errors considerably reduced the effect of dyslexia, and may be as important as the autocomplete function.

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Abstract

This is the first part of a two-part article that reviews 25 years of published research findings on end-user searching in online information retrieval (IR) systems. In Part 1 (Markey, 2007), the author seeks to answer the following questions: What characterizes the queries that end users submit to online IR systems? What search features do people use? What features would enable them to improve on the retrievals they have in hand? What features are hardly ever used? What do end users do in response to the system's retrievals? Are end users satisfied with their online searches? Summarizing searches of online IR systems by the search features people use everyday makes information retrieval appear to be a very simplistic one-stop event. In Part 2, the author examines current models of the information retrieval process, demonstrating that information retrieval is much more complex and involves changes in cognition, feelings, and/or events during the information seeking process. She poses a host of new research questions that will further our understanding about end-user searching of online IR systems.

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Abstract

Children are increasingly using the Web. Cognitive theory tells us that directory structures are especially suited for information retrieval by children; however, empirical results show that they prefer keyword searching. One of the reasons for these findings could be that the directory structures and terminology are created by grown-ups. Using a card-sorting method and an enveloping system, we simulated the structure of a directory. Our goal was to try to understand what browsable, hierarchical subject categories children create when suggested terms are supplied and they are free to add or delete terms. Twelve groups of four children each (fourth and fifth graders) participated in our exploratory study. The initial terminology presented to the children was based on names of categories used in popular directories, in the sections on Arts, Television, Music, Cinema, and Celebrities. The children were allowed to introduce additional cards and change the terms appearing on the 61 cards. Findings show that the different groups reached reasonable consensus; the majority of the category names used by existing directories were acceptable by them and only a small minority of the terms caused confusion. Our recommendation is to include children in the design process of directories, not only in designing the interface but also in designing the content structure as well.

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Abstract

This is the second part of a two-part article that examines 25 years of published research findings on end-user searching of online information retrieval (IR) systems. In Part 1, it was learned that people enter a few short search statements into online IR systems. Their searches do not resemble the systematic approach of expert searchers who use the full range of IR-system functionality. Part 2 picks up the discussion of research findings about end-user searching in the context of current information retrieval models. These models demonstrate that information retrieval is a complex event, involving changes in cognition, feelings, and/or events during the information seeking process. The author challenges IR researchers to design new studies of end-user searching, collecting data not only on system-feature use, but on multiple search sessions and controlling for variables such as domain knowledge expertise and expert system knowledge. Because future IR systems designers are likely to improve the functionality of online IR systems in response to answers to the new research questions posed here, the author concludes with advice to these designers about retaining the simplicity of online IR system interfaces.

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Abstract

This representative study of German search engine users (N?=?1,000) focuses on the ability of users to distinguish between organic results and advertisements on Google results pages. We combine questions about Google's business with task-based studies in which users were asked to distinguish between ads and organic results in screenshots of results pages. We find that only a small percentage of users can reliably distinguish between ads and organic results, and that user knowledge of Google's business model is very limited. We conclude that ads are insufficiently labelled as such, and that many users may click on ads assuming that they are selecting organic results.

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Abstract

In previous articles, we reported the state of Web searching in 1997 (Jansen, Spink, & Saracevic, 2000) and in 1999 (Spink, Wolfram, Jansen, & Saracevic, 2001). Such snapshot studies and statistics on Web use appear regularly (OCLC, 1999), but provide little information about Web searching trends. In this article, we compare and contrast results from our two previous studies of Excite queries' data sets, each containing over 1 million queries submitted by over 200,000 Excite users collected on 16 September 1997 and 20 December 1999. We examine how public Web searching changing during that 2-year time period. As Table 1 shows, the overall structure of Web queries in some areas did not change, while in others we see change from 1997 to 1999. Our comparison shows how Web searching changed incrementally and also dramatically. We see some moves toward greater simplicity, including shorter queries (i.e., fewer terms) and shorter sessions (i.e., fewer queries per user), with little modification (addition or deletion) of terms in subsequent queries. The trend toward shorter queries suggests that Web information content should target specific terms in order to reach Web users. Another trend was to view fewer pages of results per query. Most Excite users examined only one page of results per query, since an Excite results page contains ten ranked Web sites. Were users satisfied with the results and did not need to view more pages? It appears that the public continues to have a low tolerance of wading through retrieved sites. This decline in interactivity levels is a disturbing finding for the future of Web searching. Queries that included Boolean operators were in the minority, but the percentage increased between the two time periods. Most Boolean use involved the AND operator with many mistakes. The use of relevance feedback almost doubled from 1997 to 1999, but overall use was still small. An unusually large number of terms were used with low frequency, such as personal names, spelling errors, non-English words, and Web-specific terms, such as URLs. Web query vocabulary contains more words than found in large English texts in general. The public language of Web queries has its own and unique characteristics. How did Web searching topics change from 1997 to 1999? We classified a random sample of 2,414 queries from 1997 and 2,539 queries from 1999 into 11 categories (Table 2). From 1997 to 1999, Web searching shifted from entertainment, recreation and sex, and pornography, preferences to e-commerce-related topics under commerce, travel, employment, and economy. This shift coincided with changes in information distribution on the publicly indexed Web.

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Abstract

A large number of studies have investigated the transaction log of general-purpose search engines such as Excite and AItaVista, but few studies have reported an the analysis of search logs for search engines that are limited to particular Web sites, namely, Web site search engines. In this article, we report our research an analyzing the search logs of the search engine of the Utah state government Web site. Our results show that some statistics, such as the number of search terms per query, of Web users are the same for general-purpose search engines and Web site search engines, but others, such as the search topics and the terms used, are considerably different. Possible reasons for the differences include the focused domain of Web site search engines and users' different information needs. The findings are useful for Web site developers to improve the performance of their services provided an the Web and for researchers to conduct further research in this area. The analysis also can be applied in e-government research by investigating how information should be delivered to users in government Web sites.

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Abstract

In this study, we investigate the similarities and differences between rankings of search results by users and search engines. Sixty-seven students took part in a 3-week-long experiment, during which they were asked to identify and rank the top 10 documents from the set of URLs that were retrieved by three major search engines (Google, MSN Search, and Yahoo!) for 12 selected queries. The URLs and accompanying snippets were displayed in random order, without disclosing which search engine(s) retrieved any specific URL for the query. We computed the similarity of the rankings of the users and search engines using four nonparametric correlation measures in [0,1] that complement each other. The findings show that the similarities between the users' choices and the rankings of the search engines are low. We examined the effects of the presentation order of the results, and of the thinking styles of the participants. Presentation order influences the rankings, but overall the results indicate that there is no "average user," and even if the users have the same basic knowledge of a topic, they evaluate information in their own context, which is influenced by cognitive, affective, and physical factors. This is the first large-scale experiment in which users were asked to rank the results of identical queries. The analysis of the experimental results demonstrates the potential for personalized search.

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Abstract

Eleven middle school children constructed hierarchical maps for two science categories selected from two Web directories, Yahooligans! and KidsClick! For each category, children constructed a pair of maps: one without links and one with links. Forty-tour maps were analyzed to identify similarities and differences. The structures of the maps were compared to the structures employed by the directories. Children were able to construct hierarchical maps and articulate the relationships among the concepts. At the global level (whole map), children's maps were not alike and did not match the structures of the Web directories. At the local levels (superordinate and subordinate), however, children shared similarities in the conceptual configurations, especially for the concrete concepts. For these concepts, substantial overlap was found between the children's structures and those employed in the directories. For the abstract concepts the configurations were diverse and did not match those in the directories. The findings of this study have impl!cations for design of systems that are more supportive of children's conceptual structures.

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Abstract

This study examines the influence of time constraints on Internet and Web search goals and search behavior. Specifically, it looks at the searching behavior of public library Internet users who, previously limited to 30 minutes per Internet session, are given an unlimited amount of time for use. Interviews and observations were conducted with 34 participants searching on their own queries. Despite an increase in the time allowed for searching, most people spent less than 30 minutes on the Internet, carrying out tasks like paying bills, shopping, browsing, and making reservations. Those who took more than 30 minutes were looking for jobs or browsing. E-mail use was universal. In this context, influences like time-dependent and time-independent tasks, use of search hubs to perform more efficient searches, and search diversity were recorded. Though there are a number of large and small studies of Internet and Web use, few of them focus on temporal influences. This study extends knowledge in this area of inquiry.

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Abstract

This research continues to explore the user's evaluation of Web search engines using a methodology proposed by Su (1997) and tested in a pilot study (Su, Chen, & Dong, 1998). It seeks to generate useful insight for system design and improvement, and for engine choice. The researchers were interested in how undergraduate students used four selected engines to retrieve information for their studies or personal interests and how they evaluated the interaction and search results retrieved by the four engines. Measures used were based on five evaluation criteria: relevance, efficiency, utility, user satisfaction, and connectivity. Thirty-six undergraduate juniors and seniors were recruited from the disciplines of sciences, social sciences and humanities. Each searched his/her own topic on all four engines in an assigned order and each made relevance judgements of retrieved items in relation to his/her information need or problem. The study found some significant differences among the four engines but none dominated in every aspect of the multidimensional evaluation. Alta Vista had the highest number of relevant and partially relevant documents, the best relative recall and the highest precision ratio based on PR1, Alter Vista had significantly better scores for these three measures than for Lycos. Infoseek had the highest satisfaction rating for response time. Both Infoseek and Excite had significantly higher satisfaction ratings for response time than Lycos. Excite had the best score for output display. Excite and Alta Vista had significantly better scores for output display than Lycos. Excite had the best rating for time saving while Alta Vista achieved the best score for value of search results as a whole and for overall performance. Alta Vista and Excite had significantly better ratings for these three measures than Lycos. Lycos achieved the best relevance ranking performance. Further work will provide more complete picture for engine comparison and choice by taking into account participant characteristics and identify factors contributing to the user's satisfaction to gain better insight for system design and improvement

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Abstract

This study reports the results of Part 11 of a research project that investigated the cognitive and physical behaviors of middle school students in using Yahooligans! Seventeen students in the seventh grade searched Yahooligans! to locate relevant information for an assigned research task. Sixty-nine percent partially succeeded, while 31 % failed. Children had difficulty completing the task mainly because they lacked adequate level of research skills and approached the task by seeking specific answers. Children's cognitive and physical behaviors varied by success levels. Similarities and differences in children's cognitive and physical behaviors were found between the research task and the factbased task they performed in the previous study. The present study considers the impact of prior experience in using the Web, domain knowledge, topic knowledge, and reading ability on children's success. It reports the overall patterns of children's behaviors, including searching and browsing moves, backtracking and looping moves, and navigational styles, as well as the time taken to complete the research task. Children expressed their information needs and provided recommendations for improving the interface design of Yahooligans! Implications for formal Web training and system design improvements are discussed

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