Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Interpreting User Inactivity on Search Results

  • Conference paper
Advances in Information Retrieval (ECIR 2010)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNISA,volume 5993))

Included in the following conference series:

Abstract

The lack of user activity on search results was until recently perceived as a sign of user dissatisfaction from retrieval performance, often, referring to such inactivity as a failed search (negative search abandonment). However, recent studies suggest that some search tasks can be achieved in the contents of the results displayed without the need to click through them (positive search abandonment); thus they emphasize the need to discriminate between successful and failed searches without follow-up clicks. In this paper, we study users’ inactivity on search results in relation to their pursued search goals and investigate the impact of displayed results on user clicking decisions. Our study examines two types of post-query user inactivity: pre-determined and post-determined depending on whether the user started searching with a preset intention to look for answers only within the result snippets and did not intend to click through the results, or the user inactivity was decided after the user had reviewed the list of retrieved documents. Our findings indicate that 27% of web searches in our sample are conducted with a pre-determined intention to look for answers in the results’ list and 75% of them can be satisfied in the contents of the displayed results. Moreover, in nearly half the queries that did not yield result visits, the desired information is found in the result snippets.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Log in via an institution
Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD 84.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD 109.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

Preview

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

References

  1. Agichtein, E., Brill, E., Dumais, S., Rango, R.: Learning user interaction models for predicting search result preferences. In: Proceedings of the 29th ACM SIGIR Conference (2006)

    Google Scholar 

  2. Belkin, N.: Some(what) grand challenges for information retrieval. ACM SIGIR Forum 42(1), 47–54 (2008)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  3. Broder, A.: A taxonomy of web search. SIGIR Forum 36(2), 3–10 (2002)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  4. Claypool, M., Le, P., Waseda, M., Brown, D.: Implicit interest indicators. In: Proceedings of the International Conference on Intelligent User Interfaces, pp. 33–40 (2001)

    Google Scholar 

  5. Callan, J., Allan, J., Clarke, C.L.A., Dumais, S., Evans, D.A., Sanderson, M., Zhai, C.: Meeting of the MINDS: an information retrieval research agenda. ACM SIGIR Forum 41(2), 25–34 (2007)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  6. Cutrell, E., Guan, Z.: What are you looking for? an eye-tracking study of information usage in web search. In: Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, pp. 407–416 (2007)

    Google Scholar 

  7. Fox, S., Karnawat, K., Mydland, M., Dumais, S., White, T.: Evaluating implicit measures to improve web search. ACM Transactions on Information Systems 23(2), 147–168 (2005)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  8. Granka, L.A., Joachims, T., Gay, G.: Eye-tracking analysis of user behaviour in www results. In: Proceedings of the ACM SIGIR Conference, pp. 478–479 (2004)

    Google Scholar 

  9. Huang, J., Efthimiadis, E.N.: Analyzing and Evaluating Query Reformulation Strategies in Web Search Logs. In: Proceedings of the 18th ACM Conference on Information and Knowledge Management (CIKM), Hong Kong, November 2-6, pp. 77–86 (2009)

    Google Scholar 

  10. Jansen, B.J., Spink, A.: How are we searching the www: a comparison of nine search engine transaction logs. Information Processing & Management 42(1), 248–263 (2006)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  11. Jansen, B.J., Booth, D.L., Spink, A.: Determining the informational, navigational and transactional intent of web queries. Information Processing & Management 44, 1251–1266 (2008)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  12. Joachims, T., Granka, L., Pan, B., Hembrooke, H., Padlinski, F., Gay, G.: Evaluating the accuracy of implicit feedback from clicks and query reformulations in web search. ACM Transactions on Information Systems 25(2), 1–26 (2007)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  13. Joachims, T., Radlinski, F.: Search engines that learn from implicit feedback. Computer 40, 34–40 (2007)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  14. Jung, S., Herlocker, J.L., Webster, J.: Click data as implicit relevance feedback in web search. Information Processing & Management 43(3), 791–807 (2007)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  15. Kelly, D., Teevan, J.: Implicit feedback for inferring user preference: a bibliography. ACM SIGIR Forum 37(2), 18–28 (2003)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  16. Qiu, F., Liu, Z., Cho, J.: Analysis of user web traffic with a focus on search activities. In: Proceedings of the International Workshop on the Web and Databases, WebDB (2005)

    Google Scholar 

  17. Radlinski, F., Kurup, M., Joachims, T.: How does clickthrough data reflect retrieval quality. In: Proceedings of the CIKM Conference (2008)

    Google Scholar 

  18. Rose, D.E., Levinson, D.: Understanding user goals in web search. In: Proceedings of the 13th International Conference on World Wide Web (WWW 2004), pp. 13–19. ACM Press, New York (2004)

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  19. Sarma, A., Gollapudi, S., Ieong, S.: Bypass rates: reducing query abandonment using negative inferences. In: Proceedings of the 14th ACM SIGKDD International Conference on Knowledge Discovery and Data Mining, pp. 177–185 (2008)

    Google Scholar 

  20. Scott, J.L., Huffman, B., Tokuda, A.: Good abandonment in mobile and pc internet search. In: Proceedings of the 32nd Annual ACM SIGIR Conference, Boston, MA, pp. 43–50 (2009)

    Google Scholar 

  21. Sharma, H., Jansen, B.J.: Automated evaluation of search engine performance via implicit user feedback. In: Proceedings of the 28th ACM SIGIR Conference, pp. 649–650 (2005)

    Google Scholar 

  22. Spink, A.: A user centered approach to evaluating human interaction with web search engines: an exploratory study. Information Processing & Management 38(3), 401–426 (2002)

    Article  MATH  Google Scholar 

  23. Stamou, S., Efthimiadis, E.N.: Queries without clicks: successful or failed searches? In: Proceedings of the SIGIR Workshop on the Future of Information Retrieval Evaluation, Boston, MA, USA (2009)

    Google Scholar 

  24. Taksa, I., Spink, A., Goldberg, R.: A task-oriented approach to search engine usability studies. Journal of Software 3(1), 63–73 (2008)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  25. Teevan, J., Adar, E., Jones, R., Potts, M.: Information re-retrieval: repeat queries in Yahoo’s logs. In: Proceedings of the 30th ACM SIGIR Conference (2007)

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Computer Engineering and Informatics Department, Patras University, Patras, 26500, Greece

    Sofia Stamou

  2. Department of Archives and Library Science, Ionian University, Corfu, 49100, Greece

    Sofia Stamou

  3. Information School, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, USA

    Efthimis N. Efthimiadis

Authors
  1. Sofia Stamou
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Efthimis N. Efthimiadis
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Adaptive Information Cluster, Dublin City University, Dublin, 9, Ireland

    Cathal Gurrin

  2. The Open University, Walton Hall, MK7 6HF, Milton Keynes, UK

    Yulan He

  3. Microsoft Research Ltd, 7 JJ Thomson Avenue, CB3 0FB, Cambridge, UK

    Gabriella Kazai

  4. Department of Computer Science, University of Essex, Wivenhoe Park, CO4 3SQ, Colchester, UK

    Udo Kruschwitz

  5. The Open University, Walton Hall, Milton Keynes, UK

    Suzanne Little

  6. University of London, London, UK

    Thomas Roelleke

  7. Knowledge Media Institute, The Open University, MK7 6AA, Milton Keynes, UK

    Stefan RĂĽger

  8. Department of Computing Science, University of Glasgow, 17 Lilybank Gardens, G12 8QQ, Glasgow, UK

    Keith van Rijsbergen

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2010 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

About this paper

Cite this paper

Stamou, S., Efthimiadis, E.N. (2010). Interpreting User Inactivity on Search Results. In: Gurrin, C., et al. Advances in Information Retrieval. ECIR 2010. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 5993. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-12275-0_12

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-12275-0_12

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-642-12274-3

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-642-12275-0

  • eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation