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One core element of interactive information retrieval (IIR) experiments is the assignment of search tasks. The purpose of this paper is to provide an analytical review of current practice in developing those search tasks to test, observe or control task complexity and difficulty.

Over 100 prior studies of IIR were examined in terms of how each defined task complexity and/or difficulty (or related concepts) and subsequently interpreted those concepts in the development of the assigned search tasks.

Search task complexity is found to include three dimensions: multiplicity of subtasks or steps, multiplicity of facets, and indeterminability. Search task difficulty is based on an interaction between the search task and the attributes of the searcher or the attributes of the search situation. The paper highlights the anomalies in our use of these two concepts, concluding with suggestions for future methodological research related to search task complexity and difficulty.

By analyzing and synthesizing current practices, this paper provides guidance for future experiments in IIR that involve these two constructs.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate information retrieval (IR) in the context of authentic work tasks (WTs), as compared to traditional experimental IR study designs.

The participants were 22 professionals working in municipal administration, university research and education, and commercial companies. The data comprise 286 WTs and 420 search tasks (STs). The data were collected in natural situations. It includes transaction logs, video recordings, interviews, observation, and daily questionnaires.

The analysis included the effects of WT type and complexity on the number of STs, queries, search keys and types of queries. The findings suggest that simple STs are enough to support most WTs. Complex WTs (vs more simple ones) and intellectual WTs (vs communication, support and editing WTs) include more STs than other WT categories.

Further research should address the problems related to controllability of field studies and enhance the use of realistic WT situations in test-based studies, as well.

The study is an attempt to bring traditional IR studies and realistic research settings closer to each other. Using authentic WTs when studying IR is still rare. The representativeness of the WT/ST types used in interactive IR experiments should be carefully addressed: in the work flow, people seldom consciously recognise separate “STs”. This means that STs may mainly be an academic construct even to the point that studying IR without a decent context does violence to the further understanding of the phenomenon.

The purpose of the paper is to develop a theoretical framework with testable propositions discussing the role of counterfactual thinking in fostering accurate decision-making in groups and preventing catastrophes, being mediated by information searching, sharing, task conflict and conflict management mechanisms, moderated by task complexity, cognitive complexity, cognitive closure and tolerance of ambiguity.

A theoretical framework is formulated and propositions are postulated involving independent, mediating, moderating and dependent variables.

This paper recommends a helpful framework for understanding of how counterfactual thinking affects information searching, sharing and decision-making accuracy in groups, thereby preventing catastrophes.

The proposed framework might be of assistance in managing complex group decision-making and information sharing in organizations. Decision-makers may become aware that activating counterfactual mind-set enables them to search for critical information facilitating accurate decision-making in groups leading to catastrophe prevention.

This paper adds value to the field of counterfactual thinking theory applied to group decision-making. Moreover, the paper provides a novel framework for group decision-making which sheds light on pertinent variables, which can either ameliorate or exacerbate the accuracy of decision-making by information searching and sharing in groups under varying context of high/low task complexity. The ramifications of task conflict, conflict management mechanisms, team diversity and size are explored alongside the moderating role of cognitive complexity, cognitive closure and tolerance for ambiguity.

The purpose of this paper is to aim at modelling the trails, which are search patterns with several search systems across the heterogeneous information environment. In addition, the author seeks to examine what kinds of trails occur in routine, semi-complex and complex tasks, and what barrier types occur during the trail-blazing.

The author used qualitative task-based approach with shadowing of six molecular medicine researchers during six months, and collected their web interaction logs. Data triangulation made this kind of detailed search system integration analysis possible.

Five trail patterns emerged: branches, chains, lists, singles and berrypicking trails. The berrypicking was typical to complex work tasks, whereas the branches were common in routine work tasks. Singles and lists were employed typically in semi-complex tasks. In all kinds of trails, the barriers occurred often during the interaction with a single system, but there was a considerable number of barriers with the malfunctioning system integration, and lacking integration features. The findings propose that the trails could be used to reduce the amount of laborious manual system integration, and that there is a need for support to explorative search process in berrypicking trails.

Research of information behaviour yielding to different types of search patters with several search systems during real-world work task performance in molecular medicine have not been published previously. The author presents a task-based approach how to model search behaviour patterns. The author discusses the issue of system integration, which is a great challenge in biomedical domain, from the viewpoints of information studies and search behaviour.

Turn-taking is beneficial to conversational search success, but the increase in turns and time can also increase the cognitive load of the user. Therefore, in this research paper, the authors view conversational search sessions through the lens of economic theory and use the economic models of search to analyze the various costs and benefits of information-seeking interactions.

First, the authors built a cost-benefit model for conversational search sessions by defining action types and performing an intellectual mapping of actual sessions into sequences of these actions (using thematic analyses). The authors used the hypothesized cost and benefit actions (obtained from the user-system dialogs), along with the number of turns, utterances and time-related parameters, to propose the mathematical model. Next, the authors tested the model empirically by comparing the model scores to the user satisfaction and task success scores (collected through questionnaires). By representing each session as a bag of actions, the authors developed linear regression models to predict task success and user satisfaction.

Through feature analysis and significance testing, the authors identify the different parameters that contribute significantly to user satisfaction and task success scores. Error analysis shows that the model predicts task success and user satisfaction reasonably well, with the average prediction error being 0.5 for both (on a 5-point scale).

The authors' research is an initial step toward building a mathematical model for predicting user satisfaction and task success in conversational search sessions.

Keywords search is intuitive, simple to use and convenient. It is also the de facto input interface for textual and multimedia retrieval. However, individuals often perform poorly when faced with exploratory search tasks that are common during learning, resulting in poor quality searches. The purpose of this paper is to examine how adolescent learners search and select videos to support self-learning. The findings allow for the identification of design concepts of video retrieval interface and features that can facilitate better exploratory searches.

Participants were assigned two customized video search tasks. The think-aloud protocol is used to allow participants to verbalize their actions, thoughts and feeling. This approach offered rich insights to the participants’ cognitive processes and considerations when performing the search tasks.

This study identified five themes for exploratory video search behavior: selection of internet resources, query formulation/reformulation, selection of the video(s) for preview, getting acquainted with the video content, and making a decision for the search task. The analysis of these themes led to a number of design concepts, ranging from supporting exploration of topics to better interaction with metadata.

The findings can inform future development of dedicated video retrieval systems interfaces that seeks to facilitate effective exploratory searches by learners.

This study contributes by suggesting design concepts for video retrieval system developers to support exploratory video searches.

A conceptual model describes important factors within a system and how they relate to one another. They are important because they help to identify system changes that can yield the greatest improvement. Within information retrieval (IR), most research is directed towards multi-document retrieval and a multi-interaction IR user scenario. There are few, if any, IR conceptual models supporting minimal or single-interaction IR (siIR) user scenarios, however the need for siIR systems is growing rapidly. The purpose of this paper is to take the first step towards constructing a task-oriented conceptual model and experimental framework to support siIR research.

A first principles approach is employed to develop a task-oriented conceptual model, called bridging information retrieval (BIR). This model is contrasted with the concept of relevance, a central factor within IR research.

BIR introduces the central concept of bridging information (BI) as the objective of IR systems. BI is the additional information a user requires to complete a task, beyond their innate knowledge. The relationship between BI and relevance is determined.

The theoretical basis of BIR is derived axiomatically; however the resulting system evaluation model is speculative.

The proposed operational framework offers researchers a systematic approach to designing and evaluating siIR systems.

This work contributes a novel task-oriented IR conceptual model and evaluation framework, both centred around the concept of BI for siIR. It also contributes a novel search task classification method.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the role of task and user’s topic familiarity in the evaluation of information patch (websites).

An experimental study was conducted in a computer laboratory to examine users’ information seeking and foraging behaviour. In total, 160 university students participated in the research. Two types of task instructions, specifically defined and non-specifically defined (general) task types were administered. Mixed methods approach involving both quantitative and qualitative thematic coding were adopted, from the data of the questionnaire surveys and post-experiment interviews.

In the context of task attributes, users who conducted information seeking task with specifically defined instructions, as compared to the non-specifically defined instructions, demonstrated stricter credibility evaluations. Evidence demonstrated the link between topical knowledge and credibility perception. Users with topical knowledge applied critical credibility assessments than users without topical knowledge. Furthermore, the evidential results supported that the level of difficulty and knowledge of the topic or subject matter associated with users’ credibility evaluations. Users who have lesser or no subject knowledge and who experienced difficulty in the information search tended to be less diagnostic in their appraisal of the information patch (website or webpages). Users equipped with topical knowledge and who encountered less difficulty in the search, exhibited higher expectation and evaluative criteria of the information patch.

The constraints of time in the lab experiment, carried out in the presence of and under the observation of the researcher, may affect users’ information seeking behaviour. It would be beneficial to consider users’ information search gratifications and motivations in studying information evaluations and foraging patterns. There is scope to investigate users’ proficiency such as expert or novice, and individual learning styles in assessing information credibility.

Past studies on information evaluation, specifically credibility is often associated with users’ characteristics, source, or contents. This study sheds light on the context of task type, task difficulty and topical knowledge in affecting users’ information judgement.

One of the scarce studies in relating task orientation, task difficulty and topical knowledge to information evaluations.

This study explores the effects of cognitive load on the propensity to reformulate queries during information seeking on the web.

This study employs an experimental design to analyze the effect of manipulations of cognitive load on the propensity for query reformulation between experimental and control groups. In total, three affective components that contribute to cognitive load were manipulated: mental demand, temporal demand and frustration.

A significant difference in the propensity of query reformulation behavior was found between searchers exposed to cognitive load manipulations and searchers who were not exposed. Those exposed to cognitive load manipulations made half as many search query reformulations as searchers not exposed. Furthermore, the National Aeronautical and Space Administration Task Load Index (NASA-TLX) cognitive load scores of searchers who were exposed to the three cognitive load manipulations were higher than those of searchers who were not exposed indicating that the manipulation was effective. Query reformulation behavior did not differ across task types.

The findings suggest that a dual-task method and NASA-TLX assessment serve as good indicators of cognitive load. Because the findings show that cognitive load hinders a searcher's interaction with information search tools, this study provides empirical support for reducing cognitive load when designing information systems or user interfaces.

To design effective task-responsive search systems, sufficient understanding of users’ tasks must be gained and their characteristics described. Although existing multi-dimensional task schemes can be used to describe users’ search and work tasks, they do not take into account the information use environment (IUE) that contextualises the task. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

With a focus on English primary schools, in four stages a multi-dimensional task scheme was developed that distinguishes between task characteristics generic to all environments, and those that are specific to schools. In Stage 1, a provisional scheme was developed based upon the existing literature. In the next two stages, through interviews with teachers and observations of school children, the provisional scheme was populated and revised. In Stage 4, whether search tasks with the same information use can be distinguished by their characteristics was examined.

Ten generic characteristics were identified (nature of work task, search task originator, search task flexibility, search task doer, search task necessity, task output, search goal, stage in work task, resources and information use) and four characteristics specific to primary schools (curricular area, use in curricular area, planning and location). For the different information uses, some characteristics are more typical than others.

The resulting scheme, based on children’s real-life information seeking, should be used in the design and evaluation of search systems and digital libraries that support school children. More generally, the scheme can also be used in other environments.

This is the first study to develop a multi-dimensional task scheme that considers encompasses the IUE.