In the context of my PhD thesis in Human–Computer Interaction, I currently conduct a survey concerning the use of search engines. With the help of this survey I hope to better understand how you perceive and use search engines and which expectations you have towards them. In particular, I focus on the use of search engines with smart phones, tablet PCs and other devices, such as Nintendo Wii U or PlayStation 4 (yes, you can actually browse the web with these!).
Automatic Approaches to Usability Optimization
The research for my PhD thesis is concerned with automatic approaches to optimizing the usability of search engines. To date, we have developed two core systems within the context of desktop PCs: TMR, which uses mouse cursor interactions to predict the relevance of search results, and WaPPU, which evaluates the usability of a whole web interface based on a quantitative usability score rather than qualitative assessments by individual experts.
With TMR, we evaluated 32 GB of tracking data from two German hotel booking portals. Using these data, we were able to learn models for predicting a completed booking process (which is a very strong indicator for relevance in the context of hotel search) from users’ interactions with the individual search results. The top models we learned reached correlation coefficients of up to 0.81.
WaPPU was involved in the redesign and evaluation of the web search results page of another real-world search engine. During an A/B test based on WaPPU’s usability score, we found the original version of the page to have a score of only 59.9% while the redesigned version reached 67.5% (the difference was statistically significant). We moreover detected significant differences for the individual usability factors distraction and information density.
My next aim is to transfer the above methods into the context of touch and other novel devices. That’s why I need your help with probing the current situation with respect to search engine usage on different devices.
Search Engines: Perception, Usage & Expectations
The survey will take about 15–20 minutes (partly depending on your answers). Since I’m writing my PhD thesis in cooperation with Unister GmbH in Leipzig (Germany), every participant receives a coupon worth 50 € for booking a trip on ab-in-den-urlaub.de. I want to thank my industry partner very much for providing this nice incentive 🙂
Please take my survey (see below) and also tell your friends and family about it (especially if you can’t make time for taking it yourself). In this way, you can contribute valuable data to my PhD thesis and help shape future search engines! Thank you very much 🙂
(Open survey in new tab: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1rX5EOQhzEXa-G-WxUz6aT5PKYb4ofVTPCGumO2h8Vtg/viewform?usp=send_form)
2008 – Tales of Design & User Experience 