From Tool to Teacher: Rethinking Search Systems as Instructive Interfaces

TL;DR

This paper proposes viewing search systems as instructive tools that can enhance users' learning and critical skills, not just retrieve information, by applying educational frameworks to system design.

Contribution

It introduces a pedagogical perspective on search systems, analyzing how features can support user learning and proposing design principles for educationally effective information access tools.

Findings

Design choices influence critical evaluation skills

Features like query suggestions support metacognitive reflection

Instructional framing can improve user strategy transfer

Abstract

Information access systems such as search engines and generative AI are central to how people seek, evaluate, and interpret information. Yet most systems are designed to optimise retrieval rather than to help users develop better search strategies or critical awareness. This paper introduces a pedagogical perspective on information access, conceptualising search and conversational systems as instructive interfaces that can teach, guide, and scaffold users' learning. We draw on seven didactic frameworks from education and behavioural science to analyse how existing and emerging system features, including query suggestions, source labels, and conversational or agentic AI, support or limit user learning. Using two illustrative search tasks, we demonstrate how different design choices promote skills such as critical evaluation, metacognitive reflection, and strategy transfer. The paper contributes a conceptual lens for evaluating the instructional value of information access systems and outlines design implications for technologies that foster more effective, reflective, and resilient information seekers.