Previous studies show that end-users of IR systems and the World Wide Web conduct a series of related or successive searches over time or request successive searches from search intermediaries. This paper provides results from a study that expands our understanding of successive searches conducted for information seekers by intermediaries. The study explored aspects of successive Dialog searches conducted by intermediaries for information seekers. Findings show that information seekers requested a mean of two searches from intermediaries with a range of one to six searches. Successive searches were generally requested information seekers to extend or expand, or refine the results of previous searches.
Most successive searches involve some change in search terms and databases from previous search.
Interestingly, precision did not necessary increase over successive searches and the percentage of partially relevant items decreased significantly after three searches. The findings have implications for interactive IR models, the design of IR systems and the practice of searching. Abstract With the development of information technology, search engines are widely used as tools to find useful information from the Internet. However, most search engines were developed on the basis of technical requirements and without much consideration for the customer's perspective. The purpose of this study is to consider quality issues of Internet search engines and hence help the designers to improve quality from the customer's point of view.