Exploring the Relationships Between Search Intentions and Query Reformulations

We report on a study investigating the relationships among query reformulations and different search intentions during an information seeking session. Twenty-four participants were each asked to search for information useful for two (of four) different journalism tasks; after completing each search, the search was replayed, and participants were asked to specify what they intended to accomplish in each query segment of the search session, and whether those intentions were satisfied. Logs of the searches were analyzed to extract the queries at the start and finish of each query segment, and query reformulations were classified. Results show that: participants regularly indicated a variety of different search intentions during the course of an information seeking session; there are some differences in reformulation types following different search intentions; there are some differences in reformulation types which follow satisfied and unsatisfied intentions; and, there are differences in the frequency of intentions following reformulations which themselves follow satisfied and unsatisfied intentions. Implications for system design are discussed.