# Understanding Mobile Search Task Relevance and User Behaviour in Context

## TL;DR

This study investigates how mobile search behavior and task relevance are influenced by context, using a novel app to accurately capture user context during on-the-go searches over a week.

## Contribution

It introduces a task-based user study with a bespoke Android app to accurately capture mobile user context, advancing understanding of search behavior in real-world scenarios.

## Key findings

- Context significantly affects search behavior and task relevance.
- On-the-go searches differ from stationary searches in performance.
- Actual context is an important factor in mobile search effectiveness.

## Abstract

Improvements in mobile technologies have led to a dramatic change in how and when people access and use information, and is having a profound impact on how users address their daily information needs. Smart phones are rapidly becoming our main method of accessing information and are frequently used to perform `on-the-go' search tasks. As research into information retrieval continues to evolve, evaluating search behaviour in context is relatively new. Previous research has studied the effects of context through either self-reported diary studies or quantitative log analysis; however, neither approach is able to accurately capture context of use at the time of searching. In this study, we aim to gain a better understanding of task relevance and search behaviour via a task-based user study (n=31) employing a bespoke Android app. The app allowed us to accurately capture the user's context when completing tasks at different times of the day over the period of a week. Through analysis of the collected data, we gain a better understanding of how using smart phones on the go impacts search behaviour, search performance and task relevance and whether or not the actual context is an important factor.