Document Type

Thesis

Degree

Master of Science (MS)

Major/Program

Please see currently inactive department below.

Major/Program

Industrial and Systems Engineering

First Advisor's Name

Marc L. Resnick

First Advisor's Committee Title

Committee Chair

Second Advisor's Name

Ronald Giachetti

Third Advisor's Name

Shih-Ming Lee

Date of Defense

11-20-2003

Abstract

The design of interfaces to facilitate user search has become critical for search engines, ecommerce
sites, and intranets. This study investigated the use of targeted instructional hints to improve search by measuring the quantitative effects of users' performance and satisfaction.

The effects of syntactic, semantic and exemplar search hints on user behavior were evaluated in an empirical investigation using naturalistic scenarios. Combining the three search hint components, each with two levels of intensity, in a factorial design generated eight search engine interfaces. Eighty participants participated in the study and each completed six realistic search tasks.

Results revealed that the inclusion of search hints improved user effectiveness, efficiency and confidence when using the search interfaces, but with complex interactions that require specific guidelines for search interface designers. These design guidelines will allow search designers to create more effective interfaces for a variety of search
applications.

Identifier

FI14050422

Comments

If you are the rightful copyright holder of this dissertation or thesis and wish to have it removed from the Open Access Collection, please submit a request to dcc@fiu.edu and include clear identification of the work, preferably with URL.

Share

COinS
 

Rights Statement

Rights Statement

In Copyright. URI: http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/
This Item is protected by copyright and/or related rights. You are free to use this Item in any way that is permitted by the copyright and related rights legislation that applies to your use. For other uses you need to obtain permission from the rights-holder(s).