Searching on the Go

Abstract

Smart phones and tablets are rapidly becoming our main method of accessing information and are frequently used to perform on-thego search tasks. Mobile devices are commonly used in situations where a ention must be divided, such as when walking down a street. Research suggests that this increases cognitive load and, therefore, may have an impact on performance. In this work we conducted a laboratory experiment with both device types in which we simulated everyday, common mobile situations that may cause fragmented a ention, impact search performance and a ect user perception.Our results showed that the fragmented a ention induced by the simulated conditions signi cantly a ected both participants' objective and perceived search performance, as well as how hurried they felt and how engaged they were in the tasks. Furthermore, the type of device used also impacted how users felt about the search tasks, how well they performed and the mount of time they spent engaged in the tasks.ese novel insights provide useful information to inform the design of future interfaces for mobile search and give us a greater understanding of how context and device size a ect search behaviour and user experience.

The effects of simulated interruptions on mobile search tasks

“…Walking and interacting at the same time requires a user to divide their attention between the two tasks (Lamberg & Muratori, 2012) and has effects that extend beyond just interaction with the interface. Reading comprehension can be significantly reduced (Barnard et al, 2007) and people's perception of their own performance and of the search task can be negatively impacted (Harvey & Pointon, 2017, 2019.…”

“…Prior work has investigated the effects of common distractions and their resulting interruptions both in-the-wild (Hoggan et al, 2009;Oulasvirta et al, 2005) and via laboratory-based experiments (Brumby et al, 2013;Harvey & Pointon, 2017, 2019Nicolau & Jorge, 2012). Oulasvirta et al (2005) had participants complete tasks while following a pre-defined, but otherwise uncontrolled, route through a city and compared their behaviour with those completing tasks in a lab.…”

“…Later work (Hoggan et al, 2009) demonstrated that noisy and bumpy environments have a similar effect, reducing the ability of users to accurately interact with the device and increasing their interaction times. Controlled laboratory-based experiments (Harvey & Pointon, 2017) have shown that fragmented attention of users while searching on-the-go affects objective search performance along with users' perception of task difficultly and of their own performance. More detailed analysis by the same authors revealed that ambulatory motion had a negative impact on the ability of participants to read documents and assess them for relevance and increased the amount of time necessary to correct query input errors.…”

“…A substantial amount of research has been conducted on the impact of mobile device use on other activities, such as driving (Caird et al, 2008;Larsen et al, 2020;Oviedo-Trespalacios et al, 2016), but relatively little has been conducted on the effects of environmental interruptions on mobile device use. What has been done has either been focused on the impact of constant walking (continuous mild distraction) on searchers' objective performance and on their perceptions of the task (Harvey & Pointon, 2017, 2019; or has involved users following a route through a city, where many variables remain uncontrolled and thus internal validity is low (Oulasvirta et al, 2005).…”

“…This research was informed by our prior work that studied the impact of walking on search performance (Harvey & Pointon, 2017, 2019, the conduct of controlled laboratory studies of mobile search interfaces (Gopi & Hoeber, 2016), and the design of interfaces to support search task resumption (Gomes & Hoeber, 2021). While research in cognitive psychology has sought to understand the impact of interruptions on cognitive processes (Couffe & Michael, 2017;Lavie, 2005), such studies have been conducted using tightly-controlled environments and activities.…”