An empirical analysis of user behaviour on multilingual information retrieval

Abstract

Purpose This paper aims to understand user information behaviours when they perform multilingual information retrieval. It also offers reference for the development of multilingual information retrieval systems and relevant service platforms. Design/methodology/approach The authors designed an experiment on multilingual information retrieval with WorldWideScience, utilized Camtasia studio7 (a screen capturing and recording tool) to record overall operational processes of subjects and collected participants’ thought processes with think-aloud protocols. Meanwhile, a questionnaire survey and interviews were used to examine the subjects’ background information, their feelings for the experiment and their ideas about the experimental platform, respectively. Thirty-two valid data points were obtained by 41 subjects. Findings The users preferred their own language for retrieval. Most users from social science chose general search or advanced search freely according to the tasks. The majority of the participants selected key words directly from the tasks as search terms. Doctoral candidates were more likely to construct a search query with logic symbols. Translation tools were utilized for assisting retrieval and solving doubts of translation. When facing obstacles, users stayed on the original web page to explore continually, followed by back to homepage. Originality/value This paper provides a study of user behaviour through investigating how users behave on the whole process of retrieving multilingual information. The findings offer advice for optimizing the function of multilingual information retrieval systems and service platforms.