How users interact with query suggestions

An explorative study

Abstract

Objective — This paper examines the influence of the query types defined by Broder (2002) on the use of query suggestions during input in web search.
Methods — In an explorative user study each of 18 participants resolved 21 search tasks. Their behaviour was protocolled via desktop recording and keylogging.
Results — Query suggestions were adopted in 54 % of all queries. If no suggestion was taken, the user input and query suggestions matched in almost 80 %. Results suggest that a query suggestion is only taken if it completely matches the user’s internal query.
Conclusions — Query suggestions work well for navigational queries, but poorly for informational ones. There are mainly four reasons for query suggestion use: Speed (shorten typing process), success (suggested queries produce better results), inspiration and spell checking.

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