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Interactive faceted query suggestion for exploratory search: Whole‐session effectiveness and interaction engagement
Author(s) -
Ruotsalo Tuukka,
Jacucci Giulio,
Kaski Samuel
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
journal of the association for information science and technology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.903
H-Index - 145
eISSN - 2330-1643
pISSN - 2330-1635
DOI - 10.1002/asi.24304
Subject(s) - session (web analytics) , computer science , exploratory search , information retrieval , query expansion , set (abstract data type) , exploratory research , web search query , operationalization , scope (computer science) , recall , query optimization , situated , search engine , human–computer interaction , world wide web , artificial intelligence , psychology , philosophy , epistemology , sociology , anthropology , cognitive psychology , programming language
The outcome of exploratory information retrieval is not only dependent on the effectiveness of individual responses to a set of queries, but also on relevant information retrieved during the entire exploratory search session. We study the effect of search assistance, operationalized as an interactive faceted query suggestion, for both whole‐session effectiveness and engagement through interactive faceted query suggestion. A user experiment is reported, where users performed exploratory search tasks, comparing interactive faceted query suggestion and a control condition with only conventional typed‐query interaction. Data comprised of interaction and search logs show that the availability of interactive faceted query suggestion substantially improves whole‐session effectiveness by increasing recall without sacrificing precision. The increased engagement with interactive faceted query suggestion is targeted to direct situated navigation around the initial query scope, but is not found to improve individual queries on average. The results imply that research in exploratory search should focus on measuring and designing tools that engage users with directed situated navigation support for improving whole‐session performance.