The effect of user characteristics on search effectiveness in information retrieval

Al-Maskari, Azzah; Sanderson, Mark

doi:10.1016/j.ipm.2011.03.002

Cited by 52 publications

(34 citation statements)

References 13 publications

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“…In terms of frustration, participants in the low perceptual speed group experienced more than twice the level of frustration while completing our create tasks (with the experience again rated only near the midpoint of the scale). Although we used different tasks and conducted our study using the open web, our results related to perceptual speed reflect similar findings from prior research [1,2,35]. Users with stronger perceptual speed abilities exhibit advantages in information searching.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 82%

“…It draws on the ability to scan information effectively, make choices for response and is said to be related to automatic mental processes [19]. Studies have investigated perceptual speed and its effect on user effectiveness and user satisfaction in the context of TREC search tasks [1], its effect on learning and search performance in searching bibliographic abstracts of an experimental IR system [2], and its effect on web search behaviors on four different search engines [35]. For example, in Al-Maskari and Sanderson [1], users with high perceptual speed spent significantly less time finding the first relevant document when conducting TREC search tasks.…”

Section: Perceptual Speedmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Cognitive abilities are comprised of higher mental functions such as reasoning, remembering, understanding and problem solving [15]. Several cognitive abilities have been studied in information science, including memory [50], perceptual speed [1,2,35] and visualization [13,18], yet none of these studies has investigated the ways in which these abilities impact the user's perception of workload or interact with task complexity. While there have been studies examining these elements in part, there has not been a study that has examined all of these elements and their relationships with each other in one research design.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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The effect of cognitive abilities on information search for tasks of varying levels of complexity

Brennan

Kelly

Arguello

2014

Proceedings of the 5th Information Interaction in Context Symposium

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Although web search engines are designed as one-size-fits-all tools, people do not come in one size, but instead vary across many different attributes. One such attribute is cognitive ability. Because information search is primarily a cognitive activity, understanding the extent to which variations in cognitive abilities impact search behaviors and outcomes is especially important. We describe a study in which we explore how people's cognitive abilities affect their search behaviors and perceptions of workload while conducting search tasks with different levels of complexity. Twenty-one adults from the general public completed this study. We assessed participants' associative memory, perceptual speed, and visualization abilities and also measured workload. To evaluate the relationship between cognitive ability, task complexity and workload, we conducted three separate mixed factor ANOVAs corresponding to each of the abilities. Our results suggest three important trends: (1) associative memory ability had no significant effect on search behavior and workload, (2) visualization ability had a significant effect on search behavior, but not workload, and (3) perceptual speed had a significant effect on search behavior and workload. Specifically, participants with high perceptual speed ability engaged in more search activity in less time and experienced less workload. While the interactions were not significant, the differences were more pronounced for more complex tasks. We also found a significant relationship between task complexity and workload, and task complexity and search behaviors, which corroborates previous research.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 82%

Section: Perceptual Speedmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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The effect of cognitive abilities on information search for tasks of varying levels of complexity

Brennan

Kelly

Arguello

2014

Proceedings of the 5th Information Interaction in Context Symposium

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“…A user may assess an outcome immediately, but when the task that prompted the search is complex, that judgment may only come after a succession of search tasks (and other types of information tasks) and over a period of time. Individual differences such as age, gender, expertise, mental effort, and learning style may affect the process, but there is as yet definitive influential set [1,6,8].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…These have been characterized in multiple ways [14,19,25]. One of the few attempts to examine the interactions between these two dimensions is the work of AlMaskari and Sanderson [1,2], who examined the relationship between selected aspects of behaviour and perception, and found significant associations between user satisfaction and user effectiveness (e.g., completeness), and user satisfaction and system effectiveness (e.g., precision, recall). To our knowledge, there is only one measure that integrates user behaviour with user perception: Tague-SutcliffeÕs informativeness measure [20] that assesses the performance of the system simultaneously with the perception of the user.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Relationship Between User Perception and User Behaviour in Interactive Information Retrieval Evaluation

Zhuang

Toms

Demartini

2016

Lecture Notes in Computer Science

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Measures of user behaviour and user perception have been used to evaluate interactive information retrieval systems. However, there have been few efforts taken to understand the relationship between these two. In this paper, we investigated both using user actions from log files, and the results of the User Engagement Scale, both of which came from a study of people interacting with a novel interface to an image collection, but with a non-purposeful task. Our results suggest that selected behavioural actions are associated with selected user perceptions (i.e., focused attention, felt involvement, and novelty), while typical search and browse actions have no association with aesthetics and perceived usability. This is a novel finding that can lead toward a more systematic user-centered evaluation.

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Personalization in text information retrieval: A survey

Liu

Belkin

2019

Asso for Info Science & Tech

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Personalization of information retrieval (PIR) is aimed at tailoring a search toward individual users and user groups by taking account of additional information about users besides their queries. In the past two decades or so, PIR has received extensive attention in both academia and industry. This article surveys the literature of personalization in text retrieval, following a framework for aspects or factors that can be used for personalization. The framework consists of additional information about users that can be explicitly obtained by asking users for their preferences, or implicitly inferred from users' search behaviors. Users' characteristics and contextual factors such as tasks, time, location, etc., can be helpful for personalization. This article also addresses various issues including when to personalize, the evaluation of PIR, privacy, usability, etc. Based on the extensive review, challenges are discussed and directions for future effort are suggested.

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The effect of user characteristics on search effectiveness in information retrieval

Cited by 52 publications

References 13 publications

The effect of cognitive abilities on information search for tasks of varying levels of complexity

The effect of cognitive abilities on information search for tasks of varying levels of complexity

The Relationship Between User Perception and User Behaviour in Interactive Information Retrieval Evaluation

Personalization in text information retrieval: A survey

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