How does Domain Expertise Affect Users' Search Processes in Exploratory Searches?

Huge amount of users use Web search engines to learn new skills and knowledge everyday. Understanding how the users search to learn is essential for making search engines support these learning-related searches more effectively. Previous researches categorize these learning-related searches as exploratory searches, because they are often open-ended and multi-faceted, in which the user usually submits multiple queries iteratively to explore a large information space. In this position paper, we propose to conduct a user study to investigate whether and how users’ domain expertise affect their search processes in exploratory searches. We also set up a preliminary research framework, design the experiment protocol of the user study, and discuss about the limitations of this study and the potential implications for improving Web search engines.

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