Paper Info
Title
Effects of task and domain on searcher attention
Abstract
Previous studies of online user attention during information seeking tasks have mainly focused on analyzing searcher behavior in the web search settings. While these studies enabled better understanding of search result examination, their findings might not generalize for the tasks and search interfaces in other domains such as Shopping or Social Media. In this paper we present, to best of our knowledge, the first cross-domain comparison of search examination behavior and patterns of aggregated attention across Web Search, News, Shopping and Social Network domains. We investigate how domain of the search and the scope of the information need affect search examination, and find significant differences beyond those arising from natural disparities between individuals. For example, we find that the mean fixation duration, a common indicator of cognitive load, varies significantly across domains (e.g., mean fixation duration in the Social Network domain exceeds that of general Web Search by over 30%). We also find large differences in the aggregate patterns of user attention on the screen, especially in the Shopping and Social Network domains compared to the Web Search domain, emphasizing the need for domain specific user models and evaluation metrics.
Year
DOI
Venue
2014
10.1145/2600428.2609516
SIGIR
Keywords
Field
DocType
search process,search result examination,searcher behavior,user attention patterns
World Wide Web,Information needs,Social media,Social network,Semantic search,Information retrieval,Computer science,Information seeking,Search analytics,Cognitive load
Conference
Citations 
PageRank 
References 
6
0.42
5
Authors
2
Name
Order
Citations
PageRank
Dmitry Lagun135114.96
Eugene Agichtein24549269.70