An Approach for Capturing Human Information Behaviour

Abstract

Rapid proliferation of web information through desktop and small devices places an increasing pressure on Information Retrieval (IR) systems. Users interact with the Internet in dynamic environments that require the IR system to be context aware. Modern IR systems take advantage of user location, browsing history or previous interaction patterns, but a significant number of contextual factors that impact the user information retrieval process are not yet available. Parameters like the emotional state of the user and user domain expertise affect the user experience significantly but are not understood by IR systems. This paper presents results of a user study that simplifies the way context in IR and its role in the systems’ efficiency is perceived. The study supports the hypothesis that the number of user interaction contexts and the problems that a particular user is trying to solve is finite, changing slowly and tightly related to the lifestyle. Therefore, the IR system’s perception of the interaction context can be reduced to a finite set of frequent user interactions. In addition to simplifying the design of context aware personalized IR systems, this can significantly improve the user experience.