时间限制和搜索任务类型对搜索体验的影响分析

Effect of Time Constraint and Task Type on Search Experience

【目的】分析不同情境(有无时间限制、两种搜索任务)如何影响用户搜索行为和体验。【方法】采用用户实验法,共计40名大学生被试参与实验。他们在有时间限制和没有时间限制的情况下分别完成两种类型的搜索任务:事实型和理解型任务。【结果】实验发现时间限制会减少用户搜索时长、写文档时长,且会降低用户搜集的信息量和新知识的增长程度;但时间限制会加速用户整理信息的速度。同时,研究也发现搜索任务对搜索体验的影响。搜索任务类型对用户搜索和写文档的时间比例及文档字数产生的速度均没有显著影响。但是无时间限制时,被试会花费更多的时间完成理解型任务,但在两类任务中搜集的信息量和新知识增长量却没有显著差异。在有时间限制时,相比事实型任务,被试在理解型任务搜集更多的信息量却认为其获取的新知识量较少。【局限】在实验室环境中模拟搜索时间限制,可能与真实情景下的时间限制存在差异,因此研究结论推广有一定的局限性。【结论】本研究说明时间限制会影响用户搜索策略,以及用户对不同搜索任务付出的认知努力,对更全面地理解时间和搜索任务两个情境因素对搜索行为的影响有重要意义。

[Objective] This paper investigates the differences of users＇ search experience between two types of tasks, with and without time constraint, with the goal to understand how various contextual factors influence search behaviors and experience. [Methods] A user experiment is conducted, in which 40 undergraduate students participated, to search for two types of search tasks： Fact Finding （FF） and Information Understanding （IU）, under two time conditions： with time constraint, and without time constraint. [Results] The results show that time constraint significantly shorten users＇ search time, writing time, and the amount of information produced in the notebook, and their new knowledge acquisition; in addition, users speed up the number of words produced in the documents. With respect to the task type effect, users＇ ratio of time on search and writing, the number of words produced on documents during search are not significantly influenced by task type, no matter whether there is time constraint or not. Very interestingly, when there is no time constraint, users spend longer time to complete the task, longer time on searching to accomplish IU tasks; however, there is no significant difference on the amount of information collected and the level of new knowledge acquisition. When there is time constraint, comparing with FF tasks, users collect more information but think they acquire lower level of new knowledge. [Limitations] This study is conducted in a lab environment, and the time constraint is manipulated by experimenters, which may not be the same as it is in real settings, so the results of this study may not be generalizable to various conditions. [Conclusions] This study has implications for understanding how time and search task type influence search behaviors for information search research.