Time Pressure and System Delays in Information Search

Crescenzi, A., Kelly, D. and Azzopardi, L. (2015) Time Pressure and System Delays in Information Search. In: SIGIR 2015: 38th Annual ACM SIGIR Conference, Santiago, Chile, 09-13 Aug 2015, pp. 767-770. ISBN 978145033621 (doi: 10.1145/2766462.2767817)

Abstract

We report preliminary results of the impact of time pres- sure and system delays on search behavior from a laboratory study with forty-three participants. To induce time pres- sure, we randomly assigned half of our study participants to a treatment condition where they were only allowed five minutes to search for each of four ad-hoc search topics. The other half of the participants were given no task time limits. For half of participants’ search tasks (n=2), five second de- lays were introduced after queries were submitted and SERP results were clicked. Results showed that participants in the time pressure condition queried at a significantly higher rate, viewed significantly fewer documents per query, had significantly shallower hover and view depths, and spent sig- nificantly less time examining documents and SERPs. We found few significant differences in search behavior for sys- tem delay or interaction effects between time pressure and system delay. These initial results show time pressure has a significant impact on search behavior and suggest the de- sign of search interfaces and features that support people who are searching under time pressure.

• Item Type: Conference Proceedings
• Status: Published
• Refereed: Yes
• Glasgow Author(s) Enlighten ID: Azzopardi, Dr Leif
• Authors: Crescenzi, A., Kelly, D., and Azzopardi, L.
• College/School: College of Science and Engineering > School of Computing Science
• ISBN: 978145033621
• Copyright Holders: Copyright © 2015 ACM
• Publisher Policy: Reproduced in accordance with the copyright policy of the publisher

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