What does time spent on searching indicate?

Pia Borlund, Sabine Dreier, Katriina Byström

12 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

In this paper, we report a comparative study on what users’ time spent on searching for information is an indication of. Time spent is commonly interpreted as an implicit measure of interest, but might indeed describe other circumstances of the information retrieval (IR) interaction. This phenomenon of time spent is interesting from an IR evaluation point of view with reference to how time spent is to be interpreted. A comparison of time spent between a semi-lab interactive IR (IIR) study using simulated work task situations and a naturalistic IIR study is presented. The findings of this comparison are further related to a study on information searching and seeking in the real work environment that provides a resonance board for the reported IIR studies. The main conclusion is that time spent searching depends not only on interest, but also on circumstances such as prior knowledge and external requirements.
Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationIIIX '12 Proceedings of the 4th Information Interaction in Context Symposium
Number of pages10
PublisherAssociation for Computing Machinery
Publication date2012
Pages184-193
ISBN (Electronic)978-1-4503-1282-0/2012/08
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2012
EventIIiX 2012 | Fourth Information Interaction in Context Symposium - Nijmegen, Netherlands
Duration: 21 Aug 201224 Aug 2012

Conference

ConferenceIIiX 2012 | Fourth Information Interaction in Context Symposium
Country/TerritoryNetherlands
CityNijmegen
Period21/08/201224/08/2012

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