A study of multitasking Web search

Abstract

We present findings from a study of users performing multitasking searches on Web search engines. A user's single session with a Web search engine may consist of seeking information on single or multiple topics. Limited research has focused on multitasking search query session. The main objective of the study is to provide a detailed analysis of multitasking sessions. FAST search sessions were used to analyze multitasking Web searches. Findings include: (1) Almost one third of FAST users perform multitasking Web searching (2) multitasking sessions often included more than three topics per session (3) multitasking sessions are longer in duration than regular searching sessions (4) most of the topic in multitasking searches were on general information, computers and entertainment.