Why do users feel search task difficult?

This paper reports on an examination of why information searchers find search tasks difficult and the specific reasons they feel difficult. Data was collected through a controlled laboratory experiment with 32 participants, each working with 4 search tasks. They were asked in questionnaires, both be...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inAmerican Society for Information Science and Technology. Meeting. Proceedings of the ... ASIST Annual Meeting Vol. 50; no. 1; pp. 1 - 4
Main Authors Liu, Jingjing, Kim, Chang Suk, Creel, Caitlin
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Hoboken Wiley Subscription Services, Inc., A Wiley Company 2013
Wiley Subscription Services, Inc
Subjects
Coding
Covering
Meetings
Psychological aspects
Ratings
Reasoning
Searching
Surveys
Tasks
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Summary:This paper reports on an examination of why information searchers find search tasks difficult and the specific reasons they feel difficult. Data was collected through a controlled laboratory experiment with 32 participants, each working with 4 search tasks. They were asked in questionnaires, both before and after the tasks, for task difficulty ratings and their reasoning for giving those ratings. We developed a coding scheme based on the difficulty reasons users gave, which covered various aspects of task, user, and user‐task interaction. This helps us understand search task difficulty, as well as provides a scheme for task difficulty control in experiment task design.
Bibliography:ark:/67375/WNG-N9VP6976-Z
ArticleID:MEET14505001125
istex:832D7379D54264715EE7A0FA85E2B35E8D833B0B
ObjectType-Article-1
SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1
ObjectType-Feature-2
content type line 23
ISSN:0044-7870
1550-8390
1550-8390
DOI:10.1002/meet.14505001125