Simplified Scheme of Search Task Difficulty Reasons

This article reports on a study that aimed at simplifying a search task difficulty reason scheme. Liu, Kim, and Creel (2015) (denoted LKC15) developed a 21‐item search task difficulty reason scheme using a controlled laboratory experiment. The current study simplified the scheme through another experiment that followed the same design as LKC15 and involved 32 university students. The study had one added questionnaire item that provided a list of the 21 difficulty reasons in the multiple‐choice format. By comparing the current study with LKC15, a concept of primary top difficulty reasons was proposed, which reasonably simplified the 21‐item scheme to an 8‐item top reason list. This limited number of reasons is more manageable and makes it feasible for search systems to predict task difficulty reasons from observable user behaviors, which builds the basis for systems to improve user satisfaction based on predicted search difficulty reasons.