A Task-Based Evaluation of an Aggregated Search Interface

  • Authors:
  • Shanu Sushmita;Hideo Joho;Mounia Lalmas

  • Affiliations:
  • Department of Computing Science, University of Glasgow,;Department of Computing Science, University of Glasgow,;Department of Computing Science, University of Glasgow,

  • Venue:
  • SPIRE '09 Proceedings of the 16th International Symposium on String Processing and Information Retrieval
  • Year:
  • 2009

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Abstract

This paper presents a user study that evaluated the effectiveness of an aggregated search interface in the context of non-navigational search tasks. An experimental system was developed to present search results aggregated from multiple information sources, and compared to a conventional tabbed interface. Sixteen participants were recruited to evaluate the performance of the two interfaces. Our results suggest that the aggregated search interface is a promising way of supporting non-navigational search tasks. The quantity and diversity of the retrieved items which participants accessed to complete a task, increased in the aggregated interface. Participants also found the aggregated presentation easier to access to retrieved items and to find relevant information, compared to the conventional interface.