A User Study of Web Search Session Behaviour using Eye Tracking data

Abstract

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.

Contributors

Mari-Carmen Marcos

David F. Nettleton

Diego Sáez-Trumper

Conference

Publication date: September 2012

Publication date (Print): September 2012

Pages: 262-267

Affiliations

Dept. Communication

Universitat Pompeu Fabra

Barcelona, Spain

[ ¹ ]Dept. Information Technology

and Communications

Universitat Pompeu Fabra

Barcelona, Spain

[ ² ]IIIA-CSIC, Bellaterra, Spain

Dept. Information Technology

and Communications

Universitat Pompeu Fabra

Barcelona, Spain

Article

DOI: 10.14236/ewic/HCI2012.35

Copyright statement: © Mari-Carmen Marcos et al. Published by BCS Learning and Development Ltd. The 26th BCS Conference on Human Computer Interaction, Birmingham, UK

License:

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 Unported License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Conference name: The 26th BCS Conference on Human Computer Interaction

Conference acronym: HCI

Conference number: 26

Conference location: Birmingham, UK

Conference date: 12 - 14 September 2012

Conference sponsor: Electronic Workshops in Computing (eWiC)

Conference theme: Human Computer Interaction

Product

Product Information: 1477-9358BCS Learning & Development

Self URI (article page): https://www.scienceopen.com/hosted-document?doi=10.14236/ewic/HCI2012.35

Self URI (journal page): https://ewic.bcs.org/

Categories

Series title: Electronic Workshops in Computing