=Paper=
{{Paper
|id=Vol-512/paper-15
|storemode=property
|title=HCI Browser: A Tool for Studying Web Search Behavior
|pdfUrl=https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-512/paper15.pdf
|volume=Vol-512
|dblpUrl=https://dblp.org/rec/conf/sigir/Capra09
}}
==HCI Browser: A Tool for Studying Web Search Behavior==
https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-512/paper15.pdf
HCI Browser: A Tool for Studying Web Search Behavior
Robert Capra
School of Information and Library Science
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
rcapra3@unc.edu
ABSTRACT present to the user, a pre-task questions file (Figure 1) with a set
We present a Mozilla Firefox extension called the HCI Browser of questions to be asked prior to each task, and a post-task
that we are developing to support studies of how users find and questions file with a list of questions to be asked after each task.
refind information on the Web. The HCI Browser presents tasks The pre- and post-task questions can be of three different types:
to the user, collects browser event data as they search for multiple choice, Likert-type, and free-text/open response.
information, records answers found, and administers pre- and When the HCI Browser is started a dialog box is shown that
post-task questionnaires. prompts the experimenter to enter a session number, participant
number and starting task. The pre-task questions for the first task
1. INTRODUCTION are then displayed (Figure 1). After the user clicks “OK”, the
Studies of how users search, manage, and refind information on main browser window is opened with the text of the task
the Web often involve presenting tasks to users and observing displayed in the toolbar (Figure 2). Initially, on the right side of
their behaviors (e.g. web pages visited, links clicked, time spent the toolbar, buttons are provided for the user to indicate when
on each page, use of the back button). Questionnaires are often they have found an “answer” for the task (these are not shown in
administered before and after tasks to gather additional data about Figure 2). Clicking the “found an answer” button then changes
the participant's experiences. the right area of the toolbar to display textboxes for the user to
Researchers have built tools such as WebTracker [5], WebLogger enter the URL and text of the answer they have found. The URL
[4], the Curious Browser [2], and URL Tracer1 to help support field is pre-filled with the URL of the current page. The system
studies of web search behaviors and have noted the challenges can be configured to allow single or multiple answers for a task.
involved with capturing naturalistic user behaviors for web search While the user is looking for the information on the Web, Firefox
[3]. Recently, the Lemur IR toolkit project introduced the Lemur supports monitoring of a wide array of browser and user interface
Query Log Toolbar2, an open source browser plug-in tool that events including button presses, use of the history mechanism,
captures events such as page loads, tab switches, and searches link navigation, changes to the URL address bar, window and tab
issued to major search engines. focus events, scrolling, and mouse events. Currently, the HCI
The tools described above are all valuable research tools, but none Browser monitors a subset of these records them to a log file. The
filled all the needs we have for collecting data on how users find HCI Browser is being designed to support several modes of
and refind information on the Web. Specifically, we need a tool operation: event logging only, task presentation, and task
that will: 1) integrate with an existing Web browser to provide a presentation with pre- and post-questionnaires for each task.
familiar browsing experience, 2) record a wide variety of user Currently, it supports pre- and post-questionnaires and limited
interactions with the web pages and the browser itself, and 3) logging. For information, downloads, and updates visit:
provide support for administrative aspects of conducting a study http://ils.unc.edu/hcibrowser
such as administering pre- and post- task questionnaires,
recording the “answers” that participants found for the tasks 3. REFERENCES
given, and managing other details such as closing any opened [1] Capra, R. (2008). Studying Elapsed Time and Task Factors
browser windows before the start of the next tasks. To support in Re-Finding Electronic Information. Workshop on Personal
these needs, we are developing a Mozilla Firefox extension called Information Management at CHI 2008.
the HCI Browser. We are developing the HCI Browser as open-
[2] Claypool, M., Le, P., Wased, M., and Brown, D. 2001.
source code and have utilized some open-source code from the
Implicit Interest Indicators. In Proceedings of the 6th
Lemur Query Log Toolbar project. This work also builds off our
International Conference on Intelligent User Interfaces.
previous experience building an instrumented web browser using
Visual Basic and the Microsoft Web Browser Control [1]. [3] Keller, M., Hawkey, K., Inkpen, K., and Watters, C. (2008).
Challenges of Capturing Natural Web-Based User Behaviors.
2. HCI BROWSER International Journal of Human-Computer Interaction,
The HCI Browser is implemented as a Firefox extension, meaning 24(4), 385-409.
that it can easily be installed on any Firefox 3 browser. After [4] Reeder, R. W., Pirolli, P., and Card, S. K. (2001).
installing the extension, every time the browser is loaded, three WebEyeMapper and WebLogger: Tools for Analyzing Eye
configuration files are read: a task file with the text of the tasks to Tracking Data Collected in Web-Use Studies. In CHI '01
Copyright is held by the author/owner(s).
Extended Abstracts.
UIIR Workshop SIGIR'09, July 23, 2009, Boston, USA. [5] Turnbull, D. (1998). Webtacker: A Tool for Understanding
1 Web Use. Unpublished report. Retreived on May 18, 2009
http://grouplab.cpsc.ucalgary.ca/cookbook/index.php/Utilities/ from: http://www.ischool.utexas.edu/~donturn/research/
URLTracer webtracker/index.html
2
http://www.lemurproject.org/querylogtoolbar/
Example Pre-Task Configuration File
-------------------------------------
MultipleChoice
5
How often do you look for information about
this topic using the Internet in your day-
to-day life?
Daily
Weekly
Monthly
Yearly
Never
---
LikertType
7
How difficult do you think this task will
be?
Very easy
Very difficult
---
LikertType
7
---
OpenAnswer
This is just a test question to see the
open answer type.
Figure 1. HCI Browser – Pre-Task Questions
Figure 2. HCI Browser – Main Browser Window