Users and tasks
Users have varying preferences, information needs, tasks and goals and information seeking
strategies (searching, browsing, navigation etc), at both an individual, group and domain
levels. IR techniques are more and more frequently being used in complex task oriented on-line
systems whose main objectives are not only to retrieve information. We need to relate the
information need to a task or a set or sequence of tasks, and design tools that supports
different information seeking strategies to fit in an appropriate task context. Systems
today most often are not designed to be adaptive: neither to tasks nor to users.
We need to understand and observe the changing nature of these tasks during an information
seeking episodes.
IR Evaluation
IR evaluation must be done in real situations and with real users with real needs and tasks.
Like users, different IR systems have their specific characteristics and functionalities that
influence how the information could be accessed. Precision and recall alone cannot provide the
understanding and other metrics are needed. We need to combine qualitative and quantitative
evaluation methods in a more dynamic evaluation framework, incorporating e.g. HCI methods.
Implications for IR design
The evaluation should reveal important implications and aspects of how the system (and interface)
could be improved as well as knowledge on how users interact with IR systems in terms of the
collaborative support between the user and the IR system, the transformation of ill-formulated
information needs, and to relate different strategies to different IR techniques.
Links:
Preben Hansen homepage: http://www.sics.se/~preben/
SICS homepage http://www.sics.se/
Preben Hansen
SICS
HUMLE Laboratory
BOX 1263
SE-164 29 KISTA, SWEDEN
Fax: 08-751 72 30
Tel: 08-633 15 54 (work)
Tel: 08-726 18 53 (home)