QWERTY: The Effects of Typing on Web Search Behavior

Abstract

Typing is a common form of query input for search engines and other information retrieval systems; we therefore investigate the relationship between typing behavior and search interactions. The search process is interactive and typically requires entering one or more queries, and assessing both summaries from Search Engine Result Pages and the underlying documents, to ultimately satisfy some information need. Under the Search Economic Theory model of interactive information retrieval, differences in query costs will result in search behavior changes. We investigate how differences in query inputs themselves may relate to Search Economic Theory by conducting a lab-based experiment to observe how text entries influence subsequent search interactions. Our results indicate that for faster typing speeds, more queries are entered in a session, while both query lengths and assessment times are lower.