Conceptual Mile Markers for Exploratory Search

During exploratory search sessions, users often experience difficulty finding and re-finding high-quality results that are pertinent to their search goals. Various studies have found that search sessions are unsuccessful, end prematurely, and/or lead to user frustration. This paper describes a framework and prototypical system called Conceptual Mile Markers (CMM) that reduces the “time to value” for a search by matching a user query with existing search paths, thereby allowing users to profit from the "wisdom of the masses" and reuse previously successful search trails. Additionally, these search paths may be saved, shared, and retrieved later as a style of lightweight personalization without the need for explicit user tracking. We propose that our framework and prototype leads to users being more likely to acquire a successful end-state and high-quality results, while being less apt to get frustrated and/or abandon searches prematurely.