The effect of user search behaviour on web information gathering tasks

Abstract

Research has identified high level tasks in activities users perform on the web. Amongst those tasks is information gathering. This type of task is complex, exploratory, and it usually requires more user effort than other tasks. During the task of information gathering, users may follow one or more types of search behaviour. This paper investigates the effect of the user search behaviour on the task of information gathering on the web. Activities users perform on the web during information gathering and their correlation with the type of behaviour followed by the user were examined. The research draws recommendations for further studies that may concern developing tools for supporting web information gathering tasks according to the user search behaviour