Query recommendations using an Internet Explorer toolbar.

Abstract

This dissertation proposes a new way to display query suggestions dynamically on an Internet Explorer browser toolbar to assist users in web searching tasks. The query suggestions are generated from a server using the collaborative approach and displayed as toolbar buttons and pop-up menu items. The toolbar also submits the query to Google and displays search results in Internet Explorer. The dissertation also carried out a small scale evaluation of the toolbar for its effect on efficiency and accuracy of search results. Eight evaluators with similar educational background and online searching skill were recruited to do the evaluation. Ten search tasks, each having one to three words of a correct answer, were created for evaluation. Each evaluator was asked to do five search tasks using the toolbar and five without using the toolbar. Evaluators recorded the start times, end times and answers for each task. They also provide feedback on the toolbar usage experience. Evaluators varied widely in both durations they took for search tasks and accuracies of answers. The query suggestion toolbar helped them in reducing average search time and increasing answer accuracies. The data strongly suggest that web searchers benefit from having a collaborative query suggestion toolbar in their web browsers.