This slide deck was presented at CHI 2017.

1. Search Roles of
Adults
In their Homes
CHI’17 Google Research Award
Jinyoung Kim, Brenna McNally, Leyla Norooz, and Allison Druin

2. We can search
Wherever we are
Whenever we want
Photo from japantimes.co.jp

3. WE STILL SEARCH AT HOME
BIT MORE FLEXIBLY
Photo by 23680544@N07, 113026679@N03, vauvau, juhansonin @ Flickr

4. INFORMATION BEHAVIORS AT HOME*
*St. Jean, B. et al. (2012). An analysis of the information behaviors, goals, and intentions of frequent Internet users: Findings from online
activity diaries. Firstmonday, 17 (2)
Sell
Get employed
Maintain households
Buy
Selfexpress
Plan for Future
Perform work-related tasks
0 25 50 75 100
5.9
13.3
2.1
2.9
0.6
0.7
0.3
4.2
67.5
15.5
8
4.2
4.4
26
84.5
86.7
88.9
91.7
92.6
100
Home Workplace School Restaurant, coffee shop, bar Other

5. What makes the home
Internet search so unique?

6. FOR EVERYDAY SEARCH
HOME AS A CONTEXT

7. SOCIAL DYNAMICS
Rieh, S. Y. (2004). On the web at home: Information seeking and Web searching in the home environment. Journal of The American
Society for Information Science and Technology, 55(8), 743–753.

8. OUR STUDY INVESTIGATES
HOW ADULTS SEARCH THE INTERNET
IN THE HOME CONTEXT.
USING THE SEARCH ROLE FRAMEWORK

9. SEARCH ROLES
OF CHILDREN AND ADOLESCENTS
Foss et al. (2012, 2013, 2014)
Attitudinal Behavioral Cognitive

10. 8 SEARCH ROLES
OF CHILDREN AND ADOLESCENTS
Power Developing DomainRule-bound
VisualNon-
motivated
Distracted
Children searchers Adolescent searchers
Social
Children & Adolescent searchers
Foss et al. (2012, 2013, 2014)

11. WE VISITED 40 HOMES
TO LEARN ABOUT
THE SEARCH ROLES OF ADULTS.
Participant
his daily search device

12. Participants
19 female and 21 male
13 students, 21 full-time workers, 2 part-time workers, and 4 retirees
Data Collection
2 researchers (1 interviewer & 1 observer)
Part 1: Internet use experience
Part 2: 5 Search Tasks
• Q1. Can you search for information on squirrels and explain to me what you did?
• Q5. Do you think R5 s music was more popular in 2010 or in 2014, and why?
• Q3. If you were searching on Google for your own interest on something you ve never
searched for before, what would you search for? Okay, let s search for that.
•
Analysis Process
3 Home-visit researchers, 2 Experienced researchers
4 rounds of coding process

13. 9 search roles: 5 evolving roles, 2 consistent roles, & 2 new roles
Power
Developing
Rule-bound
Visual
Non-motivated
Domain
Young people (under 18)
Efficient
Interest-driven
Visual
Power
Developing
Rule-bound
Domain
SocialSocial
Disinterested
Evolving
Consistent
CHANGING SEARCH ROLES
Adults (18+)

14. 9 SEARCH ROLES OF ADULTS
Disinterested
Power
Visual
Efficient
Developing
Interest-driven
Social
Domain
Rule-bound

15. 9 SEARCH ROLES OF ADULTS
Disinterested
Power
Visual
Efficient
Developing
Interest-driven
Social
Domain
Rule-bound
new roles
evolving roles

16. Disinterested
Power
Visual
Developing
Social
Domain
Rule-bound
NEW ROLES
Efficient Interest-driven

17. “Typically, most of my searches are relatively mundane, so I
stop searching when I get the answer. What’s on the movie
theaters, what’s the recipe, that sort of thing. [I] buy the
tickets and bang. (...) I don’t waste a lot of time. I don’t get
on to YouTube, and just link from video to video. I don’t,
except for reading more news, I don’t waste a lot of time...
just exploring.”
- Male, 62, Architect
• For a purpose , not just for browsing
• Quick answer-seekers
• Search engines as a tool
• Advanced search skills to find the target information
EFFICIENT SEARCHERS

18. • Like exploring whenever finding interesting topic
• Could resume the original task once curiosities are resolved
“I’m just asking the question, ‘cause that’s how I talk to Google. ‘What do squirrels eat?’
And the answer is nuts. (...) Oh, I didn’t know they eat eggs and baby birds! What? Squirrels!
That’s terrible. Oh my goodness. Baby birds.” (P37 clicked on a search result and started
reading a webpage describing squirrels’ appetites in detail.) “See! Squirrels are bird killers!
Ah! Huh.” (Returned to the search result page.) “There’s also birdfeeders, [squirrels] try to
get in there, I don’t know what they put in those. Just seeds, and nuts and stuff? I don’t
know. I wanna look that up.” (Began dictating a search and typing it out.) “Why do squirrels
eat out of bird feeders?” –P37
INTEREST-DRIVEN SEARCHERS
“I’m just asking the question, ‘cause that’s how I talk to Google. ‘What
do squirrels eat?’ And the answer is nuts. (...) Oh, I didn’t know they eat
eggs and baby birds! What? Squirrels! That’s terrible. Oh my goodness.
Baby birds.” (P37 clicked on a search result and started reading a
webpage describing squirrels’ appetites in detail.) “See! Squirrels are
bird killers! Ah! Huh.” (Returned to the search result page.) “There’s also
birdfeeders, [squirrels] try to get in there, I don’t know what they put in
those. Just seeds, and nuts and stuff? I don’t know. I wanna look that
up.” (Began dictating a search and typing it out.) “Why do squirrels eat
out of bird feeders?”
- Female, 28, Student

19. EVOLVING SEARCH ROLES
Disinterested
Power
Visual
Efficient
Developing
Interest-driven
Social
Domain
Rule-bound

20. • Occasionally search with other people
• Family members (15), Friends (9), or Colleagues (6)
• Proxy searching
• Social responsibilities
• Search on behalf of/for other people (e.g., children or parents)
SOCIAL SEARCHERS
“I have a girl friend who is not very computer savvy. She’s not just as
comfortable as I am. She’ll be here tomorrow, so we’ll sit together,
doing a wool craft… so we’ll searching where we can get the wools
and sort of things or if she see something that she likes to buy from,
there is an artist in the Eastern market, whose work I really like. I’ll go
online to see if he has anything new.”
- Female, 72, Retiree

21. • Limited knowledge about search systems & limited search skills
• Enjoy the search process itself
Internet search is like browsing card catalogue!
• Still able to complete search tasks
• The search process was not as simple as planned
DEVELOPING SEARCHERS
Female (59) Violinist

22. Contextual Factors influencing Search Roles of Adults
DISCUSSION
Changing Search Environment
Changes in cognitive skills for Internet search
New social contexts (e.g., jobs, hobbies, family roles)
Attitudes toward computer use & Internet search
Power searchers are adaptive to new search environments

23. DISCUSSION
How to support Adult Searchers of Different Search Roles
Social searchers
Support collaborative search among remote searchers
Support searches in less familiar domains
Multiple search roles depending on search contexts
Provide search options switching search modes
(e.g., exploration of new information, vs. focused search experiences)
Non-text searchers
Support multi-sensory information search (e.g., visual, sound, sense, touch)
Search with various attributes of the target information

24. LIMITATIONS &
FUTURE HOME INTERNET SEARCH STUDIES
Voluntary-based recruitment
Limited number of participants
Search behaviors of individuals, not group search behaviors
Development of roles across time

25. Search Roles of
Adults
In their Homes
Jinyoung Kim daisyj0@snu.ac.kr
Allison Druin allisond@druin.org
We want to acknowledge our colleagues
Mona Leigh Guha, Beth Foss, and Hillary Hutchinson
Special thanks to
Jinyoung Kim, Brenna McNally, Leyla Norooz, and Allison Druin