Evaluating Collaborative Search Interfaces with Information Seeking Theory

Despite the many implicit references to the social aspects of search within the history of Information Seeking and Retrieval research, there has been relatively little work that has specifically investigated the additional requirements for collaborative search software. In this paper we re-assess a recent evaluation framework, designed for individual information seeking experiences, to see a) how it can still be applied to collaborative search software; b) how it can produce additional requirements; and c) how it could be extended in future work to be even more appropriate for collaborative search evaluation. The results of the investigation reveal that it can be used to evaluate the available interactions with collaborative search software, while providing new insights into their requirements. Finally, future work will investigate roles within collaborative groups as a means to extend the framework.