The influence of task type on search experience from the perspective of time constraint

Abstract

In this study, we explored the effect of time constraint on information acquisition and knowledge acquisition during search in two types of tasks: information understanding (IU) task and fact finding (FF) task. A user experiment was conducted. Participants were asked to conducted search tasks of these two types with and without time constraint. The results indicated that when no time constraint was set, although users spent significant more time in IU tasks, they produced similar amount of information and acquired similar amount of self-rated knowledge in IU tasks and FF tasks. When searching under time constraint, even though participants produced significantly more information in IU tasks than in FF tasks, they acquired lower level of knowledge in IU tasks than in FF tasks. These results suggested that it took searchers more time to understand and interpret the information they found in IU tasks and they may first collect much information for later interpretation when given severe time constraint in IU tasks, but not in FF tasks. Categories and Subject Descriptors H.3.3 Information Storage and Retrieval: Information Search and Retrieval – search process. General Terms Measurement, Performance, Experimentation, Human Factors.