Effects of popularity and quality on the usage of query suggestions during information search Authors: Diane Kelly, Amber Cushing, Maureen Dostert, Xi Niu, Karl Gyllstrom Keywords: query popularity, query quality, query recommendation, query suggestion, search behavior, social search, usage
Abstract:
Many search systems provide users with recommended queries during online information seeking. Although usage statistics are often used to recommend queries, this information is usually not displayed to the user. In this study, we investigate how the presentation of this information impacts use of query suggestions. Twenty-three subjects used an experimental search system to find documents about four topics. Eight query suggestions were provided for each topic: four were high quality queries and four were low quality queries. Fake usage information indicating how many other people used the queries was also provided. For half the queries this information was high and for the other half this information was low. Results showed that subjects could distinguish between high and low quality queries and were not influenced by the usage information. Qualitative data revealed that subjects felt favorable about the suggestions, but the usage information was less important for the search task used in this study.
Another small sample study but raises questions that successful interfaces will consider.
Where successful means used effectively and seen by users as effective. The latter being the most important measure.