Is exploratory search different? A comparison of information search behavior for exploratory and lookup tasks
Open accessAbstract
Exploratory search is an increasingly important activity yet challenging for users. Although there exists an ample amount of research into understanding exploration, most of the major information retrieval (IR) systems do not provide tailored and adaptive support for such tasks. One reason is the lack of empirical knowledge on how to distinguish exploratory and lookup search behaviors in IR systems. The goal of this article is to investigate how to separate the 2 types of tasks in an IR system using easily measurable behaviors. In this article, we first review characteristics of exploratory search behavior. We then report on a controlled study of 6 search tasks with 3 exploratory—comparison, knowledge acquisition, planning—and 3 lookup tasks—fact‐finding, navigational, question answering. The results are encouraging, showing that IR systems can distinguish the 2 search categories in the course of a search session. The most distinctive indicators that characterize exploratory search behaviors are query length, maximum scroll depth, and task completion time. However, 2 tasks are borderline and exhibit mixed characteristics. We assess the applicability of this finding by reporting on several classification experiments. Our results have valuable implications for designing tailored and adaptive IR systems.
Integrity signals
Registry
Cites
Statistics
Claims the paper makes
Claims other papers make about this one
Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?
The requirements for evidence synthesis are not always obvious to reviewers as they are used to navigational or exploratory searching that comes intuitively.
“The requirements for evidence synthesis are not always obvious to reviewers as they are used to navigational or exploratory searching that comes intuitively.78, 85, 86, 87”
Google Scholar emerged as the number one go‐to academic search engine for most academic users due to its great ease of use and performance in informational and exploratory searches.
“In fact, it was due to its great ease of use and performance in informational and exploratory searches78 that Google Scholar emerged as the number one go‐to academic search engine for most academic users.79, 80, 81, 82”
Cites
Data Mining: Practical Machine Learning Tools and Techniques
Witten, I. H., Frank, E., & Hall, M. A. (2011) · Elsevier eBooks · doi:10.1016/c2009-0-19715-5 · Cited by 25,493 · see citing works
Witten, I. H. (2008) · Cited by 9,115 · see citing works
Broder, A. (2002) · ACM SIGIR Forum · doi:10.1145/792550.792552 · Cited by 1,944 · see citing works
Exploratory search: from finding to understanding
Marchionini, G. (2006) · Communications of the ACM · doi:10.1145/1121949.1121979 · Cited by 1,506 · see citing works
Accurately interpreting clickthrough data as implicit feedback
Joachims, T., Granka, L., Pan, B., Hembrooke, H., & Gay, G. (2005) · Proceedings of the 28th annual international ACM SIGIR conference on Research and development in information retrieval · doi:10.1145/1076034.1076063 · Cited by 1,408 · see citing works
Real life, real users, and real needs: a study and analysis of user queries on the web
Jansen, B. J. J., Spink, A. H., & Saračević, T. (2000) · Information Processing & Management · doi:10.1016/s0306-4573(99)00056-4 · Cited by 1,318 · see citing works
Improving web search ranking by incorporating user behavior information
Agichtein, E., Brill, E., & Dumais, S. (2006) · International ACM SIGIR Conference on Research and Development in Information Retrieval (SIGIR) · doi:10.1145/1148170.1148177 · Cited by 1,043 · see citing works
Understanding user goals in web search
Rose, D. E., & Levinson, D. (2004) · International World Wide Web Conference (WWW) · doi:10.1145/988672.988675 · Cited by 943 · see citing works
Task complexity affects information seeking and use
Byström, K., & Järvelin, K. (1995) · Information Processing & Management · doi:10.1016/0306-4573(94)00041-z · Cited by 887 · see citing works
The Turn: Integration of Information Seeking and Retrieval in Context
Ingwersen, P., & Jrvelin, K. (2005) · doi:10.1007/1-4020-3851-8 · Cited by 866 · see citing works
Web search behavior of Internet experts and newbies
Hölscher, C., & Strube, G. (2000) · Comput. Networks · doi:10.1016/s1389-1286(00)00031-1 · Cited by 770 · see citing works
Exploratory Search: Beyond the Query-Response Paradigm
White, R. W., & Roth, R. A. (2009) · Synthesis lectures on information concepts, retrieval, and services · doi:10.2200/s00174ed1v01y200901icr003 · Cited by 632 · see citing works
Determining the informational, navigational, and transactional intent of Web queries
Jansen, B. J. J., Booth, D. L., & Spink, A. H. (2007) · Information Processing & Management · doi:10.1016/j.ipm.2007.07.015 · Cited by 470 · see citing works
Information foraging in information access environments
Pirolli, P., & Card, S. (1995) · Proceedings of the SIGCHI conference on Human factors in computing systems - CHI '95 · doi:10.1145/223904.223911 · Cited by 464 · see citing works
What are you looking for?: an eye-tracking study of information usage in web search
Cutrell, E., & Guan, Z. (2007) · Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems · doi:10.1145/1240624.1240690 · Cited by 460 · see citing works
Task complexity affects information seeking and use
(1995) · doi:10.1016/0306-4573(95)80035-r · Cited by 450 · see citing works
Information problem solving by experts and novices: analysis of a complex cognitive skill
Brand‐Gruwel, S., Wopereis, I. G. J. H., & Vermetten, Y. (2004) · Computers in Human Behavior · doi:10.1016/j.chb.2004.10.005 · Cited by 413 · see citing works
Information-seeking strategies of novices using a full-text electronic encyclopedia
Marchionini, G. (1989) · Journal of the American Society for Information Science · doi:10.1002/(sici)1097-4571(198901)40:1 · Cited by 386 · see citing works
Task‐based information searching
Vakkari, P. (2003) · Annual Review of Information Science and Technology · doi:10.1002/aris.1440370110 · Cited by 366 · see citing works
A faceted approach to conceptualizing tasks in information seeking
Li, Y., & Belkin, N. J. (2008) · Information Processing & Management · doi:10.1016/j.ipm.2008.07.005 · Cited by 336 · see citing works
Investigating behavioral variability in web search
White, R. W., & Drucker, S. M. (2007) · International World Wide Web Conference (WWW) · doi:10.1145/1242572.1242576 · Cited by 327 · see citing works
Ingwersen, P., & Järvelin, K. (2005) · Springer eBooks · Cited by 283 · see citing works
Information and information sources in tasks of varying complexity
Byström, K. (2002) · Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology · doi:10.1002/asi.10064 · Cited by 243 · see citing works
Display time as implicit feedback
Kelly, D., & Belkin, N. J. (2004) · International ACM SIGIR Conference on Research and Development in Information Retrieval (SIGIR) · doi:10.1145/1008992.1009057 · Cited by 228 · see citing works
Cognitive style and on-line database search experience as predictors of Web search performance
Palmquist, R. A., & Kim, K. (2000) · Journal of the American Society for Information Science · doi:10.1002/(sici)1097-4571(2000)51:6 · Cited by 224 · see citing works
How does search behavior change as search becomes more difficult?
Aula, A., Khan, R. M., & Guan, Z. (2010) · Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems · doi:10.1145/1753326.1753333 · Cited by 209 · see citing works
Exploratory Search: Beyond the Query—Response Paradigm
White, R. W., & Roth, R. A. (2009) · Synthesis Lectures on Information Concepts, Retrieval, and Services · doi:10.1007/978-3-031-02260-9 · Cited by 182 · see citing works
Determining the informational, navigational and transactional intent of web queries
Booth, D. L., Jansen, B. J. J., & Spink, A. H. (2008) · Office of Education Research; Faculty of Education · Cited by 166 · see citing works
Some(what) grand challenges for information retrieval
Belkin, N. J. (2008) · ACM SIGIR Forum · doi:10.1145/1394251.1394261 · Cited by 145 · see citing works
Cognitive strategies in web searching.
Navarro-Prieto, N., Scaife, M., & Rogers, Y. (1999) · UCL Discovery (University College London) · Cited by 135 · see citing works
Web search strategies: The influence of Web experience and task type
Thatcher, A. (2007) · Information Processing & Management · doi:10.1016/j.ipm.2007.09.004 · Cited by 128 · see citing works
Assigning search tasks designed to elicit exploratory search behaviors
Wildemuth, B. M., & Freund, L. (2012) · doi:10.1145/2391224.2391228 · Cited by 125 · see citing works
Information-seeking on the Web
Kim, K. (2001) · Library & Information Science Research · doi:10.1016/s0740-8188(01)00081-0 · Cited by 124 · see citing works
A study on the effects of personalization and task information on implicit feedback performance
White, R. W., & Kelly, D. (2006) · ACM International Conference on Information and Knowledge Management (CIKM) · doi:10.1145/1183614.1183659 · Cited by 123 · see citing works
Search behaviors in different task types
Liu, J., Cole, M., Liu, C., Bierig, R., Jacek Gwizdka, A., Belkin, N. J., Zhang, J., & Zhang, X. (2010) · ACM/IEEE Joint Conference on Digital Libraries · doi:10.1145/1816123.1816134 · Cited by 116 · see citing works
Searcher’s Assessments of Task Complexity for Web Searching
Bell, D. J., & Ruthven, I. G. (2004) · Lecture notes in computer science · doi:10.1007/978-3-540-24752-4_5 · Cited by 111 · see citing works
Personalizing information retrieval for multi-session tasks
Liu, J., & Belkin, N. J. (2010) · International ACM SIGIR Conference on Research and Development in Information Retrieval (SIGIR) · doi:10.1145/1835449.1835457 · Cited by 110 · see citing works
Jenkins, C. R., Corritore, C. L., & Wiedenbeck, S. (2003) · Cited by 106 · see citing works
Głowacka, D., Ruotsalo, T., Konuyshkova, K., Athukorala, K., Samuel Kaski, A., & Jacucci, G. (2013) · ACM International Conference on Intelligent User Interfaces (IUI) · doi:10.1145/2449396.2449413 · Cited by 103 · see citing works
Self-citationGrannies, tanning beds, tattoos and NASCAR
Wu, W., Kelly, D., Edwards, A., & Arguello, J. (2012) · Information Interaction in Context Symposium (IIiX) · doi:10.1145/2362724.2362768 · Cited by 96 · see citing works
Hassan, A., White, R. W., Dumais, S., & Wang, Y. (2014) · ACM International Conference on Web Search and Data Mining (WSDM) · doi:10.1145/2556195.2556221 · Cited by 91 · see citing works
Describing and predicting information‐seeking behavior on the Web
Kim, J. (2009) · Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology · doi:10.1002/asi.21035 · Cited by 90 · see citing works
An exploration of the relationships between work task and interactive information search behavior
Li, Y., & Belkin, N. J. (2010) · Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology · doi:10.1002/asi.21359 · Cited by 79 · see citing works
Modeling successful performance in Web searching
Aula, A., & Nordhausen, K. (2006) · Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology · doi:10.1002/asi.20340 · Cited by 65 · see citing works
Athukorala, K., Hoggan, E., Lehtiö, A., Ruotsalo, T., & Jacucci, G. (2013) · Proceedings of the American Society for Information Science and Technology · doi:10.1002/meet.14505001041 · Cited by 60 · see citing works
Self-citationFrom Keyword Search to Exploration: How Result Visualization Aids Discovery on the Web
Kules, W. M., Wilson, M. L., schraefel, M. C., & Shneiderman, B. (2008) · ePrints Soton (University of Southampton) · Cited by 51 · see citing works
Understanding the relationship of information need specificity to search query length
Phan, N., Bailey, P., & Wilkinson, R. G. (2007) · International ACM SIGIR Conference on Research and Development in Information Retrieval (SIGIR) · doi:10.1145/1277741.1277870 · Cited by 51 · see citing works
Paek, T., Dumais, S., & Logan, R. (2004) · ACM SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI) · doi:10.1145/985692.985784 · Cited by 51 · see citing works
Saito, H., & Miwa, K. (2005) · Proceedings of the ... International Conference on Web Information Systems Engineering · doi:10.1109/wise.2001.996493 · Cited by 31 · see citing works
Rain or shine? Forecasting search process performance in exploratory search tasks
Shah, C. S., Hendahewa, C., & González‐Ibáñez, R. (2015) · Journal of the Association for Information Science and Technology · doi:10.1002/asi.23484 · Cited by 23 · see citing works
Athukorala, K., Oulasvirta, A., Głowacka, D., Vreeken, J., & Jacucci, G. (2014) · ACM International Conference on Information and Knowledge Management (CIKM) · doi:10.1145/2661829.2661904 · Cited by 21 · see citing works
Self-citationCan search systems detect users' task difficulty?
Liu, J., Liu, C., Jacek Gwizdka, A., & Belkin, N. J. (2010) · International ACM SIGIR Conference on Research and Development in Information Retrieval (SIGIR) · doi:10.1145/1835449.1835645 · Cited by 20 · see citing works
Exploring the use of labels to shortcut search trails
White, R. W., & Chandrasekar, R. (2010) · International ACM SIGIR Conference on Research and Development in Information Retrieval (SIGIR) · doi:10.1145/1835449.1835628 · Cited by 6 · see citing works
Flagged first, then by citations
3 of the 57 references couldn’t be matched to a known paper.
Cited by
Sorted by citations
Gusenbauer, M., & Haddaway, N. R. (2020) · Research Synthesis Methods · doi:10.1002/jrsm.1378 · Cited by 2,379 · see citing works
“The requirements for evidence synthesis are not always obvious to reviewers as they are used to navigational or exploratory searching that comes intuitively.(78,85-87) Students especially seem to have tremendous difficulty in mastering online literature searches.”
BackgroundThe ABC of systematic literature review: the basic methodological guidance for beginners
Mohamed Shaffril, H. A., Samsuddin, S. F., & Abu Samah, A. (2021) · Quality & Quantity · doi:10.1007/s11135-020-01059-6 · Cited by 656 · see citing works
Gusenbauer, M., & Haddaway, N. (2020) · Research Synthesis Methods · doi:10.1002/jrsm.1457 · Cited by 88 · see citing works
A Survey of Definitions and Models of Exploratory Search
Palagi, É., Gandon, F. L., Giboin, A., & Raphaël Troncy, A. (2017) · doi:10.1145/3038462.3038465 · Cited by 59 · see citing works
Kwon, E., Rao, V., & Goucher-Lambert, K. (2023) · Design Studies · doi:10.1016/j.destud.2023.101202 · Cited by 58 · see citing works
How Does Domain Expertise Affect Users’ Search Interaction and Outcome in Exploratory Search?
Mao, J., Liu, Y., Kando, N., Zhang, M., & Ma, S. (2018) · ACM Transactions on Information Systems · doi:10.1145/3223045 · Cited by 50 · see citing works
Athukorala, K., Medlar, A. J., Oulasvirta, A., Jacucci, G., & Głowacka, D. (2016) · ACM International Conference on Intelligent User Interfaces (IUI) · doi:10.1145/2856767.2856786 · Cited by 42 · see citing works
Self-citationExploring user experience in digital libraries through questionnaire and eye-tracking data
Kuhar, M., & Merčun, T. (2022) · Library & Information Science Research · doi:10.1016/j.lisr.2022.101175 · Cited by 41 · see citing works
Tsai, M., & Wu, A. (2021) · Computers & Education · doi:10.1016/j.compedu.2021.104236 · Cited by 41 · see citing works
Solution for Information Overload Using Faceted Search–A Review
Mahdi, M. N., Ahmad, A. R., Ismail, R., Natiq, H., & Mohammed, M. (2020) · IEEE Access · doi:10.1109/access.2020.3005536 · Cited by 39 · see citing works
A New Query Recommendation Method Supporting Exploratory Search Based on Search Goal Shift Graphs
Ma, C., & Zhang, B. (2018) · IEEE Transactions on Knowledge and Data Engineering · doi:10.1109/tkde.2018.2815544 · Cited by 38 · see citing works
Evaluating user search trails in exploratory search tasks
Hendahewa, C., & Shah, C. S. (2017) · Information Processing & Management · doi:10.1016/j.ipm.2017.04.001 · Cited by 37 · see citing works
“Maps are hard for me”: Identifying How Older Adults Struggle with Mobile Maps
Yu, J. E., & Chattopadhyay, D. (2020) · Proceedings of the 22nd International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility · doi:10.1145/3373625.3416997 · Cited by 33 · see citing works
Searching the Literature: An Analysis of an Exploratory Search Task
Soufan, A., Ruthven, I. G., & Azzopardi, L. A. (2022) · Conference on Human Information Interaction and Retrieval · doi:10.1145/3498366.3505818 · Cited by 32 · see citing works
PaperPoles: Facilitating adaptive visual exploration of scientific publications by citation links
He, J., Ping, Q., Lou, W., & Chen, C. (2019) · Journal of the Association for Information Science and Technology · doi:10.1002/asi.24171 · Cited by 26 · see citing works
Medlar, A. J., Ilves, K., Wang, P., Buntine, W., & Głowacka, D. (2016) · International ACM SIGIR Conference on Research and Development in Information Retrieval (SIGIR) · doi:10.1145/2911451.2911455 · Cited by 25 · see citing works
Self-citationQuery Suggestions as Summarization in Exploratory Search
Medlar, A. J., Li, J., & Głowacka, D. (2021) · Conference on Human Information Interaction and Retrieval · doi:10.1145/3406522.3446020 · Cited by 24 · see citing works
Self-citationContrasting Search as a Learning Activity with Instructor-designed Learning
Moraes, F., Putra, S. R., & Hauff, C. (2018) · ACM International Conference on Information and Knowledge Management (CIKM) · doi:10.1145/3269206.3271676 · Cited by 24 · see citing works
Zerhoudi, S., Günther, S., Plassmeier, K., Borst, T., Seifert, C., Hagen, M., & Granitzer, M. (2022) · ACM International Conference on Information and Knowledge Management (CIKM) · doi:10.1145/3511808.3557711 · Cited by 23 · see citing works
Choi, B., Ward, A. R., Li, Y., Arguello, J., & Capra, R. (2019) · ACM Transactions on Information Systems · doi:10.1145/3371707 · Cited by 21 · see citing works
An architecture for non-linear discovery of aggregated multimedia document web search results
Khan, A. R., Rashid, U., Saleem, K., & Ahmed, A. R. (2021) · PeerJ Computer Science · doi:10.7717/peerj-cs.449 · Cited by 19 · see citing works
Towards Fine-Grained Adaptation of Exploration/Exploitation in Information Retrieval
Medlar, A. J., Pyykkö, J., & Głowacka, D. (2017) · ACM International Conference on Intelligent User Interfaces (IUI) · doi:10.1145/3025171.3025205 · Cited by 17 · see citing works
Self-citationText Mining in Cybersecurity: Exploring Threats and Opportunities
de Boer, M., Bakker, B. J., Boertjes, E., Wilmer, M., Raaijmakers, S. A., & van der Kleij, R. (2019) · Multimodal Technologies and Interaction · doi:10.3390/mti3030062 · Cited by 16 · see citing works
Investigating exploratory search activities based on the stratagem level in digital libraries
Carevic, Z., Lusky, M., van Hoek, W., & Mayr, P. (2017) · International Journal on Digital Libraries · doi:10.1007/s00799-017-0226-6 · Cited by 16 · see citing works
An Explanatory Study on User Behavior in Discovering Aggregated Multimedia Web Content
Khan, A. R., Rashid, U., & Ahmed, N. (2022) · IEEE Access · doi:10.1109/access.2022.3177597 · Cited by 15 · see citing works
Automatic assessment of interactive OLAP explorations
Djedaini, M., Drushku, K., Labroche, N., Marcel, P., Peralta, V., & Verdeaux, W. (2018) · Information Systems · doi:10.1016/j.is.2018.06.008 · Cited by 12 · see citing works
Li, A., Thom, J., Chandar, P., Hosey, C., Thomas, B. S., & Garcia-Gathright, J. I. (2019) · International World Wide Web Conference (WWW) · doi:10.1145/3308558.3313627 · Cited by 12 · see citing works
Large-scale analysis of query logs to profile users for dataset search
Sharifpour, R., Wu, M., & Zhang, X. (2022) · Journal of Documentation · doi:10.1108/jd-12-2021-0245 · Cited by 11 · see citing works
Using Principal Component Analysis to Better Understand Behavioral Measures and their Effects
Arguello, J., & Crescenzi, A. (2019) · ACM SIGIR International Conference on Theory of Information Retrieval (ICTIR) · doi:10.1145/3341981.3344222 · Cited by 11 · see citing works
A Re-classification of Information Seeking Tasks and Their Computational Solutions
Tang, Z., & Yang, G. H. (2022) · ACM Transactions on Information Systems · doi:10.1145/3497875 · Cited by 13 · see citing works
Understanding the effects of control and transparency in searching as learning
di Sciascio, C., Veas, E. E., Barria-Pineda, J., & Culley, C. M. (2020) · ACM International Conference on Intelligent User Interfaces (IUI) · doi:10.1145/3377325.3377524 · Cited by 10 · see citing works
Gamberini, L., Gamberini, L., Spagnolli, A., Jacucci, G., Blankertz, B., & Freeman, J. (2017) · Lecture notes in computer science · doi:10.1007/978-3-319-57753-1 · Cited by 10 · see citing works
Self-citationJiang, T., Guo, Q., Wei, Y., Cheng, Q., & Lu, W. P. (2022) · Journal of Information Science · doi:10.1177/01655515221124066 · Cited by 9 · see citing works
Liang, Y., Wu, Z., Zhang, F., Song, D., & Huang, H. (2025) · International ACM SIGIR Conference on Research and Development in Information Retrieval (SIGIR) · doi:10.1145/3726302.3729998 · Cited by 9 · see citing works
Detecting User Focus in OLAP Analyses
Djedaini, M., Labroche, N., Marcel, P., & Peralta, V. (2017) · Lecture notes in computer science · doi:10.1007/978-3-319-66917-5_8 · Cited by 9 · see citing works
Klopfenstein, D. V., & Dampier, W. (2020) · Research Synthesis Methods · doi:10.1002/jrsm.1456 · Cited by 10 · see citing works
Rieger, A., Bredius, F., Tintarev, N., & Pera, M. S. (2023) · CHI Conference Extended Abstracts on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI EA) · doi:10.1145/3544549.3585693 · Cited by 11 · see citing works
Interactive Content-Based Image Retrieval with Deep Neural Networks
Pyykkö, J., & Głowacka, D. (2017) · Lecture notes in computer science · doi:10.1007/978-3-319-57753-1_7 · Cited by 9 · see citing works
Self-citationRahdari, B., Brusilovsky, P. L., Babichenko, D., Littleton, E. B., Patel, R., Fawcett, J. A., & Blum, Z. (2020) · Proceedings of the Association for Information Science and Technology · doi:10.1002/pra2.271 · Cited by 9 · see citing works
Comprehensive Review and Future Research Directions on Dynamic Faceted Search
Mahdi, M. N., Ahmad, A. R., Natiq, H., Subhi, M. A., & Qassim, Q. S. (2021) · Applied Sciences · doi:10.3390/app11178113 · Cited by 12 · see citing works
Kim, N., & Ji, Y. G. (2026) · International Journal of Human-Computer Studies · doi:10.1016/j.ijhcs.2026.103771 · Cited by 10 · see citing works
Kotzyba, M., Gossen, T., Schwerdt, J., & Nürnberger, A. (2017) · Conference on Human Information Interaction and Retrieval · doi:10.1145/3020165.3020180 · Cited by 8 · see citing works
Mitsui, M. R., Liu, J., & Shah, C. S. (2018) · International ACM SIGIR Conference on Research and Development in Information Retrieval (SIGIR) · doi:10.1145/3209978.3210105 · Cited by 8 · see citing works
In quest of goldilocks ranges in searching for information on the web
Matysek, A., & Tomaszczyk, J. (2021) · Journal of Documentation · doi:10.1108/jd-01-2021-0019 · Cited by 8 · see citing works
Exploratory search in information systems: a systematic review
Liu, Y., Qin, C., Wang, Y., & Ma, X. (2024) · The Electronic Library · doi:10.1108/el-11-2023-0264 · Cited by 7 · see citing works
Balancing Act: Boosting Strategies for Informed Search on Controversial Topics
Bink, M., & Elsweiler, D. (2024) · Conference on Human Information Interaction and Retrieval · doi:10.1145/3627508.3638329 · Cited by 7 · see citing works
Liu, Y., Qin, C., Ma, X., Li, F., & Wang, Y. (2024) · Information Processing & Management · doi:10.1016/j.ipm.2024.103794 · Cited by 8 · see citing works
Nguyen, H. T. T., Hwang, W., Pham, T., Truong, T. T. T., & Chang, H. (2023) · The Electronic Library · doi:10.1108/el-03-2023-0062 · Cited by 8 · see citing works
Dosso, C., Tamine, L., Paubel, P., & Chevalier, A. (2023) · Behaviour and Information Technology · doi:10.1080/0144929x.2023.2242514 · Cited by 7 · see citing works
Understanding Query Combination Behavior in Exploratory Searches
Li, P., Zhang, Y., & Zhang, B. (2022) · Applied Sciences · doi:10.3390/app12020706 · Cited by 7 · see citing works
Query Change as a Contextual Markov Model for Simulating User Search Behaviour
Zerhoudi, S., Granitzer, M., Schlötterer, J., & Seifert, C. (2021) · Forum for Information Retrieval Evaluation · doi:10.1145/3503162.3503165 · Cited by 7 · see citing works
Experimenting word embeddings in assisting legal review
Vo, N. P. A., Privault, C., & Guillot, F. (2017) · International Conference on Artificial Intelligence and Law · doi:10.1145/3086512.3086531 · Cited by 7 · see citing works
Characterising exploratory search tasks: Evidence from different fields
Liu, Y., Qin, C., Ma, X., Chen, J., He, H., & Mao, J. (2025) · Journal of Information Science · doi:10.1177/01655515251330611 · Cited by 6 · see citing works
Cui, Y., & Zheng, B. (2022) · Frontiers in Psychology · doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2022.891997 · Cited by 6 · see citing works
Epstein, R., Lothringer, M., & Zankich, V. R. (2024) · Behavior and Social Issues · doi:10.1007/s42822-023-00155-0 · Cited by 9 · see citing works
User Activity Characterization in a Cultural Heritage Digital Library System
Suire, C., Jean-Caurant, A., Courboulay, V., Burie, J.-C., & Estraillier, P. (2016) · ACM/IEEE Joint Conference on Digital Libraries · doi:10.1145/2910896.2925459 · Cited by 6 · see citing works
Benchmarking Faceted Browsing Capabilities of Triplestores
Petzka, H., Claus Stadler, A., Katsimpras, G., Haarmann, B., & Lehmann, J. (2017) · International Conference on Semantic Systems · doi:10.1145/3132218.3132242 · Cited by 6 · see citing works
Visualizing activity traces to support collaborative literature searching
Athukorala, K., Micallef, L., An, C., Reijonen, A., Peltonen, J., Ruotsalo, T., & Jacucci, G. (2017) · International Symposium on Visual Information Communication and Interaction (VINCI) · doi:10.1145/3105971.3105981 · Cited by 6 · see citing works
Self-citationHow Consistent is Relevance Feedback in Exploratory Search?
Medlar, A. J., & Głowacka, D. (2018) · ACM International Conference on Information and Knowledge Management (CIKM) · doi:10.1145/3269206.3269297 · Cited by 6 · see citing works
Self-citationNews2PubMed: A Browser Extension for Linking Health News to Medical Literature
Wang, J., & Yu, B. (2021) · Annual International ACM SIGIR Conference on Research and Development in Information Retrieval · doi:10.1145/3404835.3462788 · Cited by 9 · see citing works
Task Intelligence for Search and Recommendation
Shah, C. S., & White, R. W. (2021) · Synthesis lectures on information concepts, retrieval, and services · doi:10.2200/s01103ed1v01y202105icr074 · Cited by 6 · see citing works
Exploring Scientific Literature Search through Topic Models
Sorkhei, A., Ilves, K., & Głowacka, D. (2017) · doi:10.1145/3038462.3038464 · Cited by 6 · see citing works
Self-citationKleemann, T., Wagner, M., Loepp, B., & Ziegler, J. (2021) · Mensch und Computer (MuC) · doi:10.1145/3473856.3473859 · Cited by 5 · see citing works
Adams, B. (2020) · Digital Scholarship in the Humanities · doi:10.1093/llc/fqaa049 · Cited by 5 · see citing works
Interactive Visual Facets to Support Fluid Exploratory Search
He, C., Micallef, L., Serim, B., Vuong, T., Ruotsalo, T., & Jacucci, G. (2021) · International Symposium on Visual Information Communication and Interaction (VINCI) · doi:10.1145/3481549.3481565 · Cited by 6 · see citing works
Self-citationROGUE: A System for Exploratory Search of GANs
Liu, Y., Medlar, A. J., & Głowacka, D. (2022) · International ACM SIGIR Conference on Research and Development in Information Retrieval (SIGIR) · doi:10.1145/3477495.3531675 · Cited by 5 · see citing works
Self-citationZheng, Y. (2024) · Human Behavior and Emerging Technologies · doi:10.1155/2024/8288503 · Cited by 4 · see citing works
Dosso, C., Chevalier, A., Tamine, L., Paubel, P., & Salmerón, L. (2024) · Applied Ergonomics · doi:10.1016/j.apergo.2024.104367 · Cited by 4 · see citing works
Wang, S., Kim, H., Janaka, N. N. P. K., Yue, K., Nguyen, H.-L., Zhao, S., Liu, H., & Le, K.-D. (2024) · International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction with Mobile Devices and Services (MobileHCI) · doi:10.1145/3640471.3680230 · Cited by 4 · see citing works
Tu, J., Nacke, L. E., & Rogers, K. (2025) · Interacting with Computers · doi:10.1093/iwc/iwaf001 · Cited by 4 · see citing works
Using Topic Models to Assess Document Relevance in Exploratory Search User Studies
Medlar, A. J., & Głowacka, D. (2017) · Conference on Human Information Interaction and Retrieval · doi:10.1145/3020165.3022141 · Cited by 4 · see citing works
Self-citationTask Intelligence for Search and Recommendation
Shah, C. S., & White, R. W. (2021) · Synthesis lectures on information concepts, retrieval, and services · doi:10.1007/978-3-031-02326-2 · Cited by 4 · see citing works
Investigating user perceptions of conversational agents for software-related exploratory web search
Frazier, M., Kumar, S., Damevski, K., & Pollock, L. (2022) · IEEE/ACM International Conference on Software Engineering: New Ideas and Emerging Results (ICSE-NIER) · doi:10.1145/3510455.3512778 · Cited by 4 · see citing works
Torabi, M., Mirzabeigi, M., Abbaspour, J., Hadianfard, H., & Moshfeghi, Y. (2025) · Journal of Librarianship and Information Science · doi:10.1177/09610006251363976 · Cited by 3 · see citing works
Sun, X., & Li, J.-P. (2026) · Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services · doi:10.1016/j.jretconser.2025.104712 · Cited by 3 · see citing works
Unexplored Frontiers: A Review of Empirical Studies of Exploratory Search
Medlar, A. J., Kotkov, D., & Głowacka, D. (2024) · ACM SIGIR Forum · doi:10.1145/3687273.3687278 · Cited by 4 · see citing works
Self-citationApplying user-centred design to climate and environmental tools
Houtkamp, J. M., Janssen, S. J. C., Lokers, R. M., & de Groot, H. (2025) · Environmental Modelling & Software · doi:10.1016/j.envsoft.2025.106519 · Cited by 3 · see citing works
Choi, D., Shah, C. S., & Singh, V. K. (2020) · Journal of Information Science · doi:10.1177/0165551520972285 · Cited by 3 · see citing works
Machado, M. D. O. C., de Souza, J. F., & Siqueira, S. W. M. (2024) · Anais do ... Simpósio Brasileiro de Informática na Educação/Anais do Simpósio Brasileiro de Informática na Educação · doi:10.5753/sbie.2024.242341 · Cited by 3 · see citing works
van den Akker, O. R., Thibault, R. T., Ioannidis, J. P. A., Schorr, S. G., & Strech, D. (2025) · Royal Society Open Science · doi:10.1098/rsos.241364 · Cited by 3 · see citing works
On Effective Dynamic Search in Specialized Domains
Moraes, F., Santos, R. L. T., & Ziviani, N. (2017) · ACM SIGIR International Conference on Theory of Information Retrieval (ICTIR) · doi:10.1145/3121050.3121065 · Cited by 3 · see citing works
Exploratory Search and Interactive Data Analytics
Głowacka, D., Milios, E., Soto, A. J., & Paulovich, F. V. (2017) · ACM International Conference on Intelligent User Interfaces (IUI) · doi:10.1145/3030024.3040246 · Cited by 3 · see citing works
Self-citationThe Broad View of Task Type Using Path Analysis
Mitsui, M. R., & Shah, C. S. (2018) · ACM SIGIR International Conference on Theory of Information Retrieval (ICTIR) · doi:10.1145/3234944.3234951 · Cited by 3 · see citing works
Web Augmentation as a Technique to Diminish User Interactions in Repetitive Tasks
Aldalur, I., Perez, A., & Larrinaga, F. (2021) · IEEE Access · doi:10.1109/access.2021.3104187 · Cited by 3 · see citing works
Customizing ChatGPT to Help Computer Science Principles Students Learn Through Conversation
Frazier, M., Damevski, K., & Pollock, L. (2024) · Proceedings of the 2024 on Innovation and Technology in Computer Science Education V. 1 · doi:10.1145/3649217.3653570 · Cited by 2 · see citing works
Comparative Analysis: User Interactions in Public and Private Digital Libraries Datasets
Zerhoudi, S., & Granitzer, M. (2024) · Lecture Notes in Computer Science · doi:10.1007/978-3-031-72440-4_16 · Cited by 2 · see citing works
Disentangling Web Search on Debated Topics: A User-Centered Exploration
Rieger, A., Kulane, S., Gadiraju, U., & Pera, M. S. (2024) · User Modeling, Adaptation, and Personalization · doi:10.1145/3627043.3659559 · Cited by 3 · see citing works
A Flexible User Study Platform for Generative Information Retrieval
Liang, Y., Wu, Z., He, Y., Liang, F., Liu, K., & Mao, J. (2025) · International ACM SIGIR Conference on Research and Development in Information Retrieval (SIGIR) · doi:10.1145/3726302.3730140 · Cited by 2 · see citing works
Why “human‐ AI collaboration” obscures what actually happens in information seeking
Shah, C., & Tamine, L. (2026) · Journal of the Association for Information Science and Technology · doi:10.1002/asi.70059 · Cited by 2 · see citing works
Hashing for cleaner reverse engineered queries for the Entity Comparison Problem in RDF Graphs
Tyagi, P., Malta, M. C., & Dutta, A. (2020) · IEEE/WIC/ACM International Conference on Web Intelligence and Intelligent Agent Technology (WI-IAT) · doi:10.1109/wiiat50758.2020.00028 · Cited by 2 · see citing works
Using Exploratory Search to Learn Representations for Human Preferences
Dennler, N. S., Nikolaidis, S., & Matarić, M. J. (2024) · ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction (HRI) · doi:10.1145/3610978.3640745 · Cited by 2 · see citing works
Integrating measures of replicability into scholarly search: Challenges and opportunities
Wu, C., Chakravorti, T., Carroll, J. M., & Rajtmajer, S. M. (2024) · CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems · doi:10.1145/3613904.3643043 · Cited by 3 · see citing works
Cerón-Guzmán, J. A., Tetteroo, D., Hu, J., & Markopoulos, P. (2024) · International Journal of Human-Computer Studies · doi:10.1016/j.ijhcs.2024.103441 · Cited by 2 · see citing works
Jacucci, G. (2016) · Computer · doi:10.1109/mc.2016.298 · Cited by 2 · see citing works
Self-citationBEAUD: A Browser Extension to Automatize End-User Deeds
Aldalur, I. (2023) · Software Impacts · doi:10.1016/j.simpa.2023.100516 · Cited by 2 · see citing works
Context aware Markov chains models
Bar, A., Shapira, B., & Rokach, L. (2023) · Knowledge-Based Systems · doi:10.1016/j.knosys.2023.111083 · Cited by 2 · see citing works
Overcoming Routine: A 21st Century Skill for a 21st Century Economy
Strunz, U., & Chlupsa, C. (2019) · International Journal of Economic Sciences · doi:10.20472/es.2019.8.2.008 · Cited by 2 · see citing works
Adaptive Search Support for Teachers in Lesson Planning
Sebastian, R. (2024) · ACM Conference on User Modeling, Adaptation and Personalization (UMAP) · doi:10.1145/3631700.3664921 · Cited by 1 · see citing works
Bezanjani, A. P., Hoeber, O., Harvey, M., Momeni, M., & Gleeson, D. (2025) · Conference on Human Information Interaction and Retrieval · doi:10.1145/3698204.3716444 · Cited by 1 · see citing works
A GenAI Approach to Suggesting Broad and Narrow Queries for Exploratory Search
Khakshoor, H., & Hoeber, O. (2025) · Proceedings of the Association for Information Science and Technology · doi:10.1002/pra2.1451 · Cited by 1 · see citing works
- Authors
- Athukorala, K., Głowacka, D., Jacucci, G., Oulasvirta, A., & Vreeken, J.
- Affiliations
- University of Helsinki (FI)
- Aalto University (FI)
- Max Planck Institute for Informatics (DE)
- Corresponding author
- Athukorala, Kumaripaba
- Głowacka, Dorota
- Jacucci, Giulio
- Oulasvirta, Antti
- Vreeken, Jilles
- Venue
- Journal of the Association for Information Science and Technology
- Publisher
- Wiley
- Published
- 2015-10-22
- Volume
- 67
- Issue
- 11
- Pages
- 2635-2651
- ISSN
- 2330-1635 (ISSN-L)
- 2330-1643
- OpenAlex
- W2115787195
- Cited by
- 150
- References
- 57
- Citations by year
- 2026: 11 · 2025: 11 · 2024: 19 · 2023: 11 · 2022: 16 · 2021: 18 · 2020: 17 · 2019: 14 · 2018: 10 · 2017: 17 · 2016: 6
- FWCI
- 29.58
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- hybrid
- doi.org
- Licence
- Locations
- Journal of the Association for Information Science and Technology (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- Edinburgh Research Explorer (University of Edinburgh) (submittedVersion, cc-by)
- RePEc: Research Papers in Economics (submittedVersion)
- Aaltodoc (Aalto University) (submittedVersion, cc-by)
- Työväentutkimus Vuosikirja (submittedVersion)
- MPG.PuRe (Max Planck Society) (submittedVersion)
- Funders
- Cluster of Excellence “Multimodal Computing and Interaction”
- European Research Council (ERC) (637991)
- Academy of Finland
- The Finnish Funding Agency
- MindSee (611570)
- Topics
- Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Information Systems › Information Retrieval and Search Behavior
- Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Information Systems › Recommender Systems and Techniques
- Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition › Data Visualization and Analytics
- Keywords
- exploratory search, information seeking, query length, task completion time, knowledge acquisition, planning tasks, question answering
About these checks
Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.
Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.
What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›
Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review
