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arXiv · 1812.07081

Understanding Mobile Search Task Relevance and User Behaviour in Context

Mohammad Aliannejadi·Morgan Harvey·Luca Costa·Matthew Pointon·Fabio Crestani
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Abstract

Improvements in mobile technologies have led to a dramatic change in how and when people access and use information, and is having a profound impact on how users address their daily information needs. Smart phones are rapidly becoming our main method of accessing information and are frequently used to perform `on-the-go' search tasks. As research into information retrieval continues to evolve, evaluating search behaviour in context is relatively new. Previous research has studied the effects of context through either self-reported diary studies or quantitative log analysis; however, neither approach is able to accurately capture context of use at the time of searching. In this study, we aim to gain a better understanding of task relevance and search behaviour via a task-based user study (n=31) employing a bespoke Android app. The app allowed us to accurately capture the user's context when completing tasks at different times of the day over the period of a week. Through analysis of the collected data, we gain a better understanding of how using smart phones on the go impacts search behaviour, search performance and task relevance and whether or not the actual context is an important factor.

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Mohammad Aliannejadi, Morgan Harvey, Luca Costa, Matthew Pointon, Fabio Crestani. 2019-01-13. Understanding Mobile Search Task Relevance and User Behaviour in Context. https://doi.org/10.1145/3295750.3298923

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