Examining collaborative query reformulation: a case of travel information searching

Users often reformulate or modify their queries when they engage in searching information particularly when the search task is complex and exploratory. This paper investigates query reformulation behavior in collaborative tourism information searching on the Web. A user study was conducted with 17 pairs of participants and each pair worked as a team collaboratively on an exploratory travel search task in two scenarios. We analyzed users' collaborative query (CQ) reformulation behavior in two dimensions: firstly, CQ reformulation strategies; and secondly, the effect of individual queries and chat logs on CQ reformulation. The findings show that individual queries and chat logs were two major sources of query terms in CQ reformulation. The statistical results demonstrate the significant effect of individual queries on CQ reformulation. We also found that five operations were performed to reformulate the CQs, namely: addition, modification, reordering, addition and modification, and addition and reordering. These findings have implications for the design of query suggestions that could be offered to users during searches using collaborative search tools.