Traditional versus Social Search Engines:

Will they Rescue us from Drowning in theOcean of Web Resources?

A Project for Master of ScienceISE & HCINilo Sarraf

Lightning Talk - SHDH 38June 2010

Information OverflowProblem:Information overflow on the World Wide Web makes it increasingly difficultto find exact, specific, and in-depth information and web resources

Purpose:To examine whether using Social Search Engines have positive impacton user Efficiency, Effectiveness, Satisfaction, and Emotional state

Four Hypothesis:1. There will be a significant difference between using TSE versus using SSE in terms of the amount

of time that it takes to find the targeted web resources2. There will be a significant difference between using TSE versus SSE in terms of task completion3. There will be a significant difference between using TSE versus SSE in terms of user satisfaction

rate4. There will be a significant difference between using TSE versus SSE in terms of users emotional

state

MethodologyA Two-Way Repeated Measures ANOVA

Search Engines:

TSE - Traditional Search Engine

SSE - Social Search Engine

Task Levels/Query Levels:

Objective, Combination, Subjective

N = 20 Objective

(2 tasks)

Combination

(2 tasks)

Subjective

(2 tasks)

TSE

SSE

4 Measures:

1. Time on Task

2. Task Completion

3. Satisfaction

4. Emotion

4 Measures:

1. Time on Task

2. Task Completion

3. Satisfaction

4. Emotion

4 Measures:

1. Time on Task

2. Task Completion

3. Satisfaction

4. Emotion

Main Findings• Efficiency (Time on Task)

– Search Engine Main Effect• Effectiveness (Task Completion)

– Interaction: Search Engine by Task/Query Level• Satisfaction

– Task/Query Level Main Effect– Interaction: Search Engine by Task Level

• Emotion– Search Engine Main Effect

Significance• Efficiency (Time on Task)

– TSE for objective queriestakes significantly less timethan using SSE

• Effectiveness (Task Completion)– More tasks successfully

completed using SSE forSubjective queries while lesstasks completed using SSE forObjective queries

Significance• Satisfaction

– Higher satisfaction using SSE for Subjective queries while lowersatisfaction using SSE for Objective queries

• Emotion– Increasingly positive (Happy!) using SSE for Subjective queries

Conclusions• Social search engines are better for subjective, specific, and in-

depth queries• Humans have different needs for different queries• There is significant difference in how we come to experience

web search depending on the type of information we need• Traditional search engines need to get ‘smarter’• The human brain is a search engines too!• Combining human-brain with machine-brain gives best results in

our web resource queries• A combination of Social and Traditional search engine appears

to provide the best and the most pleasant search experience forusers!

A video clip illustrating how a combination of Social and Traditional search enginesmay give the best search results and user experience:

“I’d give this Aardvark search result a BIG 5 if this answer also included the relevantlink to top off this answer!”

Stressful Body Postures:

‘Subjective Queries’ using Traditional Search Engine

Limitations• Trusting your Data

– Turning qualitative data into quantitative data

• Number of Participants

Future Research

• Add additional traditional and social search engines• Include more participants• Put more emphasis on the Emotional measurement -

include in-depth follow-up questionnaire to cover theemotional states more thoroughly

Nilo.Sarraf@gmail.com415.488.NILO

Q?