Take a look at the new version of this page: [ beta version ]. Tell us what you think.

ABSTRACT

Typically, commercial Web search engines provide very little feedback to the user concerning how a particular query is processed and interpreted. Specifically, they apply key query transformations without the users knowledge. Although these transformations have a pronounced effect on query results, users have very few resources for recognizing their existence and understanding their practical importance. We conducted a user study to gain a better understanding of users knowledge of and reactions to the operation of several query transformations that web search engines automatically employ. Additionally, we developed and evaluated Transparent Queries, a software system designed to provide users with lightweight feedback about opaque query transformations. The results of the study suggest that users do indeed have difficulties understanding the operation of query transformations without additional assistance. Finally, although transparency is helpful and valuable, interfaces that allow direct control of query transformations might ultimately be more helpful for end-users.

REFERENCES

• 1: Norman, D; The Design of Everyday Things. 1988, New York: Doubleday.
• 2: Notess, GR; Search Engine Showdown: A User's Guide to Web Searching. 2001.
• 3: Christoph Höscher , Gerhard Strube, Web search behavior of Internet experts and newbies, Proceedings of the 9th international World Wide Web conference on Computer networks : the international journal of computer and telecommunications netowrking, p.337-346, June 2000, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
• 4: Choo, CW, Detlor, B, and Turnbull, D; Information Seeking on the Web - An integrated model of browsing and searching. in Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the American Society for Information Science (ASIS). 1999. Washington DC
• 5: Navarro-Prieto, R, Scaife, M, and Rogers, Y; Cognitive Strategies in Web Searching. in Proceedings of the 5th Conference on Human Factors & the Web. 1999
• 6: Christine L. Borgman, Why are online catalogs still hard to use?, Journal of the American Society for Information Science, v.47 n.7, p.493-503, July 1996 [doi>10.1002/(SICI)1097-4571(199607)47:7<493::AID-ASI3>3.3.CO;2-Y]
• 7: Christine L. Borgman, The user's mental model of an information retrieval system, Proceedings of the 8th annual international ACM SIGIR conference on Research and development in information retrieval, p.268-273, June 05-07, 1985, Montreal, Quebec, Canada [doi>10.1145/253495.253533]
• 8: Ben Shneiderman, Designing the user interface (2nd ed.): strategies for effective human-computer interaction, Addison-Wesley Longman Publishing Co., Inc., Boston, MA, 1992
• 9: Shneidermann, B, Byrd, D, and Croft, WB; Clarifying Search: A User-Interface Framework for Text Searches., in D-Lib Magazine. 1997.
• 10: Ben Shneiderman, A Framework for Search Interfaces, IEEE Software, v.14 n.2, p.18-20, March 1997 [doi>10.1109/52.582969]
• 11: P. G. Anick , J. D. Brennan , R. A. Flynn , D. R. Hanssen , B. Alvey , J. M. Robbins, A direct manipulation interface for boolean information retrieval via natural language query, Proceedings of the 13th annual international ACM SIGIR conference on Research and development in information retrieval, p.135-150, September 05-07, 1990, Brussels, Belgium [doi>10.1145/96749.98015]
• 12: Jürgen Koenemann , Nicholas J. Belkin, A case for interaction: a study of interactive information retrieval behavior and effectiveness, Proceedings of the SIGCHI conference on Human factors in computing systems: common ground, p.205-212, April 13-18, 1996, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada [doi>10.1145/238386.238487]
• 13: Beaulieu, M and Jones, S; Interactive searching and interface issues in the Okapi best match probabilistic retrieval system. Interacting with Computers, 1998. 10(3): p. 237-48.
• 14: Luhn, HP; A Statistical Approach to Mechanized Encoding and Searching of Literary Information. IBM Journal of Research and Develoopment, 1957. 1(4).
• 15: Gerard Salton , Michael J. McGill, Introduction to Modern Information Retrieval, McGraw-Hill, Inc., New York, NY, 1986
• 16: Lennon, M, Pierece, D, Tarry, B, and Willett, P; An evaluation of Some Conflation Algorithms for Information Retrieval. Journal of Information Science, 1981. 3: p. p. 177-183.

INDEX TERMS

Primary Classification:
  H. Information Systems
  H.3 INFORMATION STORAGE AND RETRIEVAL
      H.3.3 Information Search and Retrieval
          Subjects: Query formulation

Additional Classification:
  H. Information Systems
  H.3 INFORMATION STORAGE AND RETRIEVAL
      H.3.3 Information Search and Retrieval
          Subjects: Search process; Retrieval models

General Terms:
Design, Experimentation, Languages, Performance