Weblines: Enabling the Social Transfer of Web Search Expertise using User-Generated Short-form Timelines

Abstract

Web search encompasses more than fact retrieval; it is a primary entry point for learning. Exploratory search tasks are attempts at such learning and require cognitive, strategic, and interpretive work from the user. The pathways of such searches are likewise complex and nuanced. The present study attempts to enable the human work that goes into conducting exploratory searches to be efficiently captured and transmitted to other learners. By this method, web search expertise can transfer socially and implicitly between users instead of developing individually or through directed learning. The system we deployed uses an existing metaphor, the timeline, to structure insights from searches. We refer to these semantically meaningful representations as `weblines'. We deployed a live system to 81 users in three user populations. The resulting weblines were delineated into four types. Successful weblines were those that participants used to iteratively reflect upon the insights of their searches.