Interaction Model to Predict Subjective-Specificity of Search Results

Exploratory search is becoming more common as the web is used more increasingly as a medium for learning and discovery. Compared to traditional known-item search, exploratory search is more challenging and difficult to support because it initiates with poorly defined search goals, while the user knowledge and information needs constantly change throughout the search process. Modeling the user behavior in exploratory search is a hard problem to solve. In spite of a large amount of research on personalization, little attention has been devoted to personalization in the context of exploratory search taking into account the evolving information needs of the user. We propose a formal model— motivated by Information Foraging Theory—for predicting specificity of search results with respect to the evolving knowledge and information needs of the user in exploratory search.