Influence of Task Type and User Group on Web-based Information Seeking Behavior:

Analysis of Eye Movement Data and Client-side Browsing Logs

Abstract

We investigated the effect of user-based and task-based properties of people's information seeking behaviors by using screen-capture videos, browser logs, and eye movement data. The participants were 5 graduates and 11 undergraduate students. They were given two tasks: a "report task" in which they had to gather information to prepare a report on world history, and a "trip task" in which they had to plan for a trip. The results of the analysis of eye movement data show that there are several differences in focused areas for each task; e.g., participants viewed snippet blocks on the search engine results pages in the report task more often than those in the trip task, and they viewed sponsor link blocks more often in the trip task than those in the report task. Furthermore, the results of both participant groups showed that for the the trip task, participants tended to search deeper for pages through numerous links. On the other hand, graduate students tended to have more parallel browsing behaviors, i.e., using tab browsing functions, compared with the undergraduate students.