TY - GEN
T1 - Providing Direct Answers in Search Results
T2 - 29th ACM International Conference on Information and Knowledge Management, CIKM 2020
AU - Wu, Zhijing
AU - Sanderson, Mark
AU - Cambazoglu, B. Barla
AU - Croft, W. Bruce
AU - Scholer, Falk
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2020 ACM.
PY - 2020/10/19
Y1 - 2020/10/19
N2 - To study the impact of providing direct answers in search results on user behavior, we conducted a controlled user study to analyze factors including reading time, eye-tracked attention, and the influence of the quality of answer module content. We also studied a more advanced answer interface, where multiple answers are shown on the search engine results page (SERP). Our results show that users focus more extensively than normal on the top items in the result list when answers are provided. The existence of the answer module helps to improve user engagement on SERPs, reduces user effort, and promotes user satisfaction during the search process. Furthermore, we investigate how the question type - factoid or non-factoid - affects user interaction patterns. This work provides insight into the design of SERPs that includes direct answers to queries, including when answers should be shown.
AB - To study the impact of providing direct answers in search results on user behavior, we conducted a controlled user study to analyze factors including reading time, eye-tracked attention, and the influence of the quality of answer module content. We also studied a more advanced answer interface, where multiple answers are shown on the search engine results page (SERP). Our results show that users focus more extensively than normal on the top items in the result list when answers are provided. The existence of the answer module helps to improve user engagement on SERPs, reduces user effort, and promotes user satisfaction during the search process. Furthermore, we investigate how the question type - factoid or non-factoid - affects user interaction patterns. This work provides insight into the design of SERPs that includes direct answers to queries, including when answers should be shown.
KW - answer module
KW - controlled user study
KW - eye-tracking
KW - question answering
KW - search behaviour
KW - user interaction
KW - web search
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85095863535&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1145/3340531.3412017
DO - 10.1145/3340531.3412017
M3 - Conference contribution
AN - SCOPUS:85095863535
T3 - International Conference on Information and Knowledge Management, Proceedings
SP - 1635
EP - 1644
BT - CIKM 2020 - Proceedings of the 29th ACM International Conference on Information and Knowledge Management
PB - Association for Computing Machinery
Y2 - 19 October 2020 through 23 October 2020
ER -