Browsing by Subject "Exploratory Search"

This thesis presents a user study to evaluate the usability and effectiveness of a novel search interface as compared to a more traditional solution. InnovationMap is a novel search interface by Khalil Klouche, Tuukka Ruotsalo and Giulio Jacucci (University of Helsinki). It is a tool for aiding the user to perform ‘exploratory searching’; a type of search activity where the user is exploring an information space unknown to them and thus cannot form a specific search phrase to perform a traditional ‘lookup’ search as with the conventional search interfaces. In this user study InnovationMap is compared against TUHAT, a search portal that is currently in use at the University of Helsinki for searching for research works and research personnel from the university databases. The user evaluation is conducted as a qualitative within-subject study using volunteer users from the University of Helsinki. Each participant uses both systems in an alternating order over the course of two sessions. During the two sessions the volunteer user carries out information finding tasks defined in the experiment design, answers to a SUS (System Usability Scale) questionnaire and participates in a semi-structured interview. The answers from the assigned tasks are then evaluated and scored by field experts. The combined results from these methods are then used to formulate an educated assessment of the usability, effectiveness and future development potential of the InnovationMap search system.