Supporting multiple information-seeking strategies in a single system framework

Abstract

This study explores issues in information retrieval (IR) systems with special attention to information-seeking strategies (ISSs), the relation of ISSs to IR system design, and how to support multiple ISSs within a single system framework. It addresses the observation that people engage in a variety of ISSs within a single information-seeking episode. This study proposes to construct and evaluate an interactive IR (IIR) system which incorporates different IR support techniques to adaptively support multiple ISSs. Based on an information-seeking episode model (Belkin, 1996), and a multi-faceted classification scheme of information behaviors , it was conducted in a series of three consecutive steps. Firstly, four experimental systems were designed and implemented with each tailored to one of the following IR support techniques: database summary, clustered retrieval results, table of contents navigation, and fielded query. A within-subjects experiment was conducted to compare each experimental system to its respective generic baseline system, which was constructed by following the iii current standard model with a specific query input and a ranked list of search results.Results indicated that the experimental systems were superior to the baseline systems.Secondly, information-seeking dialogue structures developed in the MERIT system (Belkin, Cool, Stein & Thiel, 1995) were adopted to guide the design of the IIR system. The dialogue structures were built based on the Conversational Roles (COR) model (Sitter & Stein, 1992). Finally, an experimental system which supported multiple ISSs was built by incorporating the four IR support techniques and the dialogue structures.This experimental system was tested in a within-subjects experiment in comparison to a generic baseline system. The experiment, with 32 subjects each searching on eight different topics, indicated that using the experimental system resulted in significantly better performance, significantly more effective interaction, and significantly better usability than the baseline system. These results demonstrated that it is possible to support quite different information-seeking behaviors within a single system framework which searchers can understand and use effectively. A principled approach to designing such systems needs to be further investigated.

Testing visualization on the use of information systems

“…As an important information retrieval (IR) technique [1,2], visualization has been drawing more and more attention in the field of IR, library and information science and human-computer interaction. It has long been known that users respond differently to visualization systems than to text-based IR systems [3].…”

Mining query subtopics from search log data

“…This will significantly improve a user's experience compared with the conventional approach ( Figure 1). Although re-ranking is a simple, interactive approach to search results presentation (cf., [28]), there seems to be no study before on the approach to the best of our knowledge. Note that re-ranking can only be done for head queries, because it is based on log data mining, which is a shortcoming that any data mining method may suffer from.…”

Search Interface Design and Evaluation

“…This model could be served as the basis for the implementation of support techniques for different ISSs in search systems. Yuan and Belkin (2007) implemented an integrated IIR system that had been adapted to support different ISSs (both scanning and searching) and compared it…”