Findex: search result categories help users when document ranking fails

@inproceedings{citeulike:815424, abstract = {Long web search result lists can be hard to browse. We demonstrated experimentally, in a previous study, the usefulness of a categorization algorithm and filtering interface. However, the nature of interaction in real settings is not known from an experiment in laboratory settings. To address this problem, we provided our categorizing web search user interface to 16 users for a two month period. The interactions with the system were logged and the users' opinions were elicited with two questionnaires. The results show that categories are successfully used as part of users' search habits. They are helpful when the result ranking of the search engine fails. In those cases, the users are able to access results that locate far in the rank order list with the categories. Users can also formulate simpler queries and find needed results with the help of the categories. In addition, the categories are beneficial when more than one result is needed like in an exploratory or undirected search task.}, address = {New York, NY, USA}, author = {Kaki, Mika }, booktitle = {CHI '05: Proceedings of the SIGCHI conference on Human factors in computing systems}, citeulike-article-id = {815424}, doi = {10.1145/1054972.1054991}, isbn = {1581139985}, keywords = {information\_retrieval, searching}, pages = {131--140}, posted-at = {2008-03-02 17:54:51}, priority = {2}, publisher = {ACM Press}, title = {Findex: search result categories help users when document ranking fails}, url = {http://portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1054991}, year = {2005} }

TY - CONF ID - citeulike:815424 L3 - citeulike-article-id:815424 TI - Findex: search result categories help users when document ranking fails T2 - CHI '05: Proceedings of the SIGCHI conference on Human factors in computing systems SP - 131 EP - 140 AD - New York, NY, USA PB - ACM Press SN - 1581139985 N2 - Long web search result lists can be hard to browse. We demonstrated experimentally, in a previous study, the usefulness of a categorization algorithm and filtering interface. However, the nature of interaction in real settings is not known from an experiment in laboratory settings. To address this problem, we provided our categorizing web search user interface to 16 users for a two month period. The interactions with the system were logged and the users' opinions were elicited with two questionnaires. The results show that categories are successfully used as part of users' search habits. They are helpful when the result ranking of the search engine fails. In those cases, the users are able to access results that locate far in the rank order list with the categories. Users can also formulate simpler queries and find needed results with the help of the categories. In addition, the categories are beneficial when more than one result is needed like in an exploratory or undirected search task. KW - information_retrieval KW - searching AU - Kaki, Mika PY - 2005/// UR - http://portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1054991 ER -