Starting Conversations with Search Engines -- Interfaces that Elicit Natural Language Queries

TL;DR

This paper investigates how different search interface designs, especially chatbot-inspired ones, can encourage users to express more detailed and natural language queries, improving information elicitation.

Contribution

It introduces and evaluates four search interface variants, demonstrating that chatbot-inspired interfaces significantly enhance natural language use and detail in user queries.

Findings

Chatbot-inspired interfaces increase mentioned product attributes by 84%.

They promote natural language formulations by 139%.

Design variants effectively elicit richer user input.

Abstract

Search systems on the Web rely on user input to generate relevant results. Since early information retrieval systems, users are trained to issue keyword searches and adapt to the language of the system. Recent research has shown that users often withhold detailed information about their initial information need, although they are able to express it in natural language. We therefore conduct a user study (N = 139) to investigate how four different design variants of search interfaces can encourage the user to reveal more information. Our results show that a chatbot-inspired search interface can increase the number of mentioned product attributes by 84% and promote natural language formulations by 139% in comparison to a standard search bar interface.