User Perceptions of Search Enhancements in Web Search

Commercial web search engines are increasingly supplementing ordered lists of text results with various search enhancements. These enhancements include query suggestions, local business results, news results, related searches, and spelling suggestions. This study explores the relationships between enhancement utilization, perceptions of search effectiveness, and task complexity. Analysis of 976 search tasks conducted by 122 study participants finds that perceptions of search effectiveness are negatively associated with task complexity. We also found that perceptions of search effectiveness increased when enhancements were utilized. However, perceptions of search effectiveness decreased when more than one enhancement was used in complex search tasks. These findings have important implications for practice and research.

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