Proceedings of the 26th annual international ACM SIGIR conference on Research and development in informaion retrieval - SIGIR '03 · 2003 · 11 citations · 0 references
ComputingComputer ScienceInformation SystemsDatabasesHuman-computer InteractionInformation RetrievalEvaluation Of Retrieval SystemsInformation SearchInteractive Information RetrievalQuery ProcessingRetrieval ModelsSearch SystemsInteractive Retrieval SystemsInteractive SearchInteractive Search SystemsSearch User ExperienceUser SatisfactionUser Satisfaction AssessmentUser Satisfaction MeasurementUser Satisfaction Modeling
Query length in best-match information retrieval (IR) systems is well known to be positively related to effectiveness in the IR task, when measured in experimental, non-interactive environments. However, in operational, interactive IR systems, query length is quite typically very short, on the order of two to three words. We report on a study which tested the effectiveness of a particular query elicitation technique in increasing initial searcher query length, and which tested the effectiveness of queries elicited using this technique, and the relationship in general between query length and search effectiveness in interactive IR. Results show that the specific technique results in longer queries than a standard query elicitation technique, that this technique is indeed usable, that the technique results in increased user satisfaction with the search, and that query length is positively correlated with user satisfaction with the search.