Computers and iPhones and Mobile Phones, oh my! A logs-based comparison of search users on different devices
Venue
WWW 2009 MADRID, pp. 801-810
Publication Year
2009
Authors
Maryam Kamvar, Melanie Kellar, Rajan Patel, Ya Xu
BibTeX
Abstract
We present a logs-based comparison of search patterns across three platforms:
computers, iPhones and conventional mobile phones. Our goal is to understand how
mobile search users differ from computer-based search users, and we focus heavily
on the distribution and variability of tasks that users perform from each platform.
The results suggest that search usage is much more focused for the average mobile
user than for the average computer-based user. However, search behavior on high-end
phones resembles computer-based search behavior more so than mobile search
behavior. A wide variety of implications follow from these findings. First, there
is no single search interface which is suitable for all mobile phones. We suggest
that for the higher-end phones, a close integration with the standard
computer-based interface (in terms of personalization and available feature set)
would be beneficial for the user, since these phones seem to be treated as an
extension of the users' computer. For all other phones, there is a huge opportunity
for personalizing the search experience for the user's "mobile needs", as these
users are likely to repeatedly search for a single type of information need on
their phone.
