Mediated Web information retrieval for a complex searching task

The goal of this study is to understand whether providing a search intermediary familiar with a problem domain and its topical structure would support a userʹs Web searching tasks, especially complicated tasks with multifaceted topics, and whether the order of searching tasks or system usage influences their successful completion. This study investigates the effect of two factors, the interaction mode and the display layout, on the three main measures of the userʹs Web searching behaviors: effectiveness, efficiency, and usability. Two interaction modes are compared, mediation via a domain-specific document collection versus nonmediated search, and two display layouts, a combination of browsing-supporting hierarchic display and ranked list of results versus the simple linear list of search results. The results are analyzed in the Flow theory point of view; they were analyzed by order of the tasks and system usage order. The findings of this study contribute to a better understanding of how the mediation system and/or the combined display support a Web information user.