Situation normality and the shape of search: The effects of time delays and information presentation on search behavior

Abstract

ABSTRACTDelays have become one of the most often cited complaints of Web users. Long delays often cause users to abandon their searches, but how do tolerable delays affect information search behavior? Intuitively, we would expect that tolerable delays should induce decreased information search. We conducted two experiments and found that as delay increased, a point occurs at which time within-page information search increases ; that is, search behavior remained the same until a tipping point occurs where dela…