How Task Types and User Experiences Affect Information-Seeking Behavior on the Web: Using Eye-tracking and Client-side Search Logs (original) (raw)
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Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, 2007
Previous studies have examined various aspects of user behaviour on the Web, including general information seeking patterns, search engine use, and revisitation habits. Little research has been conducted to study how users navigate and interact with their Web browser across different information seeking tasks. We have conducted a field study of 21 participants in which we logged detailed Web usage and asked participants to provide task categorizations of their Web usage based on the following categories: Fact Finding, Information Gathering, Browsing, and Transactions. We used implicit measures logged during each task session to provide usage measures, such as dwell time, number of pages viewed, and the use of specific browser navigation mechanisms. We also report on differences in how participants interacted with their Web browser across the range of information seeking tasks. Within each type of task we found several distinguishing characteristics. In particular, Information Gathering tasks were the most complex; participants spent more time completing this task, viewed more pages, and used the Web browser functions most heavily during this task. The results of this analysis have been used to provide implications for future support of information seeking on the Web, as well as direction for future research in this area.
International Journal of Innovation and Learning
Unpacking cognitive skills engaged in web-search: how can log files, eye movements, and cued-retrospective reports help? An in-depth qualitative case study Search the Internet with a specific purpose has become an important activity. Educational research informs that a better understanding of the cognitive skills involved in this activity is needed, but it is not clear which research techniques can be used for this purpose. One student performed a web-search task and was registered by three different techniques: log files, eye movements, and cuedretrospective reports. With a qualitative analysis, we attempt to provide a twofold contribution: (1) a thorough analysis about the information retrieved from the three techniques separately, and (2) developing a methodology for integrating the information captured from the three techniques. Results showed that log files and eye movements gave insight into cognitive outcomes of skills, and cuedretrospective delivered self-explanations of cognitive and regulation activities. This integration provided an overall and comprehensive picture of the cognitive skills performed and allowed building a synergism among the information captured from each technique.
Successful Web Searches: What Makes the Difference? An Eye-Tracking Study
Revista Colombiana de Computación, Vol. 13 Nº 2, Pag. 53 - 72, 2012
Web log data has been the basis for analyzing user behavior for a number of years, but it has several important shortcomings, the main one being that we don’t really know what the user is doing – is s/he looking at the screen or doing something else? We have conducted an Eye-Tracking study to analyze how the users are searching the Web. The goal is to obtain more precise information about the search strategy of the user. Which factors are relevant in the user search process? Which characteristics make the difference between successful and unsuccessful searches? In the experiments, each user conducted three different query sessions to find three predefined information objectives, and at the end of each experiment the users were asked if they found their information objectives. This research presents results focusing on the number of formulated queries by session, documents clicked, the fixation durations on the documents, and the distribution of the attention in the different areas of the screen, among other aspects. We find interesting trends, in terms of where users look on the results and contents pages, and other derived factors which distinguish users who are successful in their information search from those who are not.
A User Study of Web Search Session Behaviour using Eye Tracking data
Proceedings Human Computer Interaction (HCI) 2012, pp. 262-267, British Computer Society, 2012
In this paper we present and empirically evaluate a user study using a web search log and eye tracking to measure user behaviour during a query session, that is, a sequence of user queries, results page views and content page views, in order to find a specific piece of information. We evaluate different tasks, in terms of those who found the correct information, and in terms of the query session sequence itself, ordered by SERP (Search Engine Result Page), number and return visits to the results page for the same query. From this we are able to identify a number of different behaviour patterns for successful and unsuccessful users, and different trends in user activity during the query session. We find that a user behaves differently after the first query formulation, when we compare with the second formulation (both queries being for the same information item). The results can be used to improve the user experience in the query session, by recognising when the user is displaying one of the patterns we have found to have a low success rate, and offering contextual help at that point. The results may also contribute to improving the design of the results page.
Information-seeking behaviours and cognitive search strategies in different search tasks on the WWW
International Journal of Industrial Ergonomics, 2006
This study investigates the cognitive strategies of 80 participants as they engaged in two researcher-defined tasks and two participant-defined information-seeking tasks using the WWW. Each researcher-defined task and participant-defined task was further divided into a directed search task and a general-purpose browsing task. On the basis of retrospective verbal protocols, log-file data and observations, 12 cognitive search strategies were identified and explained. The differences in cognitive search strategy choice between researcher-defined and participant-defined tasks and between directed search and general-purpose tasks were examined using correspondence analysis. These cognitive search strategies were compared to earlier investigations of search strategies on the WWW.Describing information-seeking behaviours and cognitive search strategies in detail provides website developers and search engine developers with valuable insights into how users seek (and find) information of value to them. Using this information, website developers might gain some knowledge as to how to best represent the content and navigational properties of websites. Search engine developers might wish to make the search and collection strategies more transparent to users. There are also design implications for the designers of web browsers.
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Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, 2008
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The Effect of Task Type and Information Format on Web Searching Performance
International Conference on Information Systems, 2006
Web search engines have become a useful tool helping Web users seek required information. Such Web sites typically present searched results as a textual list that may include thousands of Web pages. Because of the unstructured content and format of information that searchers receive, they often feel the pressure of information overload, which will inevitably compromise the quality of decision-making. Although researchers as well as practitioners have developed various information visualization approaches to enhance information presentation on Web search engines, the benefits of using such technology are unknown. This study will investigate whether and under what circumstances visualization of search results enhances users' search performance. Cognitive fit theory will be used as the theoretical foundation of this paper. The objectives of the paper are 1) to extent cognitive fit theory in the emergent domain of Web searching, 2) to understand the effects of the user interface on search performance, and 3) to guide search engine designers on how to best present results to support different search tasks.
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We report on an investigation into people’s behaviors on information search tasks, specifically the relation between eye movement patterns and task characteristics. We conducted two independent user studies (n=32 and n=40), one with journalism tasks and the other with genomics tasks. The tasks were constructed to represent information needs of these two different users groups and to vary in several
Proceedings of the 2008 symposium on Eye tracking research & applications - ETRA '08, 2008
Finding information by successively selecting hyperlinks on web pages is a typical task performed on websites. A number of web usability studies have provided important insights about how web visitors carry out a search, and have concluded that "following information scent" is the fundamental process involved in the behavior. The purpose of this paper is to explore the relationship between the strength of information scent and web visitors'eye movements. Four web page types with different usability problems were considered. In an eyetracking experiment, eleven participants were asked to find an article on a simulated encyclopedia website by first selecting a heading from among nine provided headings, then selecting the appropriate topic link under the selected heading. The number of eye fixations, the duration of the fixations, and the task completion times were analyzed. The eye-tracking study reported in this paper added further insight to the knowledge gained from traditional web usability studies, in which visitors'performance are measured by the total number of clicks and task completion times. Website visitors'performance will not exhibit any differences in the initial heading selection stage irrespective of whether or not the pages have usability problems. However, performance will deteriorate in terms of the total number of fixations in the subsequent link selection stage when the web page has any kind of usability problem.
The determinants of web page viewing behavior: an eye-tracking study
… research & applications, 2004
The World Wide Web has become a ubiquitous information source and communication channel. With such an extensive user population, it is imperative to understand how web users view different web pages. Based on an eye tracking study of 30 subjects on 22 web pages from 11 popular web sites, this research intends to explore the determinants of ocular behavior on a single web page: whether it is determined by individual differences of the subjects, different types of web sites, the order of web pages being viewed, or the task at hand. The results indicate that gender of subjects, the viewing order of a web page, and the interaction between page order and site type influences online ocular behavior. Task instruction did not significantly affect web viewing behavior. Scanpath analysis revealed that the complexity of web page design influences the degree of scanpath variation among different subjects on the same web page. The contributions and limitations of this research, and future research directions are discussed.