An In-Situ Study of Mobile App & Mobile Search Interactions
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An In-Situ Study of Mobile App & Mobile Search Interactions Juan Pablo Carrascal Karen Church Pompeu Fabra University Yahoo Labs [email protected] [email protected] ABSTRACT queries directly from within these apps. For example, Yelp When trying to satisfy an information need, smartphone users can be used to search for local businesses, Google Maps can frequently transition from mobile search engines to mobile be used to find directions, while IMDB can be used to look for apps and vice versa. However, little is known about the na- movie reviews. Thus the boundaries between mobile search ture of these transitions nor how mobile search and mobile engines and mobile apps have become blurred. apps interact. We report on a 2-week, mixed-method study Smartphone users sometimes switch between mobile search involving 18 Android users, where we collected real-world and other mobile apps to satisfy their information needs. mobile search and mobile app usage data alongside subjective Brown et al. [4] describes one such switching interaction insights on why certain interactions between apps and mobile in which mobile search and mobile maps are used inter- search occur. Our results show that when people engage with changeably — with search being used to find information mobile search they tend to interact with more mobile apps about certain places and maps being used to get directions and for longer durations. We found that certain categories of to those places. It’s likely that such switching interactions apps are used more intensely alongside mobile search. Fur- occur across a diverse range of everyday apps, i.e. beyond thermore we found differences in app usage before and af- just maps applications. One of the goals of this work is to ter mobile search and show how mobile app interactions can understand such switching behaviors. both prompt mobile search and enable users to take action. We conclude with a discussion on what these patterns mean Past research has also shown that mobile search can be trig- for mobile search and how we might design mobile search gered by our conversations and our surroundings [1, 7, 9, 24]. experiences that take these app interactions into account. Furthermore, the results of mobile search can feed into next actions and plans [4]. Thus it’s likely that some of these mo- Author Keywords bile search triggers and actions may relate to or be supported Mobile Search; Mobile Apps; User Study by interactions with mobile apps. For example, a text mes- sage from a friend may prompt a search or after searching for General Terms a local restaurant, a person may call to make a dinner reser- Human Factors vation. The goal of this paper is to explore these interactions and to investigate if and how mobile search and app usage ACM Classification Keywords relates to mobile search triggers and actions. H.5.2 Information interfaces and presentation: Miscellaneous While patterns of mobile app usage and mobile search have been studied separately [3, 18, 11, 2, 8, 13, 14, 26, 27, 22], INTRODUCTION the relationships between them have not been examined in- People adopt a range of ingenious methods when trying to sat- depth. A detailed study of in-situ app and search engine isfy their daily information needs but the Internet has become use will provide insights into how we can support more en- the dominant means of finding information for smartphone 1 riching cross app and search engine experiences, and assist users in particular [6]. A recent comScore report shows that mobile users in completing their daily information seeking mobile devices accounted for 55% of Internet usage in the tasks. To shed light on these interactions we conducted a 2- United States in January 2014. Native mobile apps made up week mixed-method study involving 18 Android users. We the majority of that traffic (85%), while the remaining 15% combined interviews, a daily online diary and real-world mo- came from mobile browsers. With a wealth of information bile usage data to gather rich insights into mobile information seeking apps at their fingertips, mobile users can now issue seeking behaviors. Over the 2-week period we collected ap- 1Mobile apps overtake PC Internet usage in U.S., See: cnn- proximately 54,000 mobile app launches, over 840 mobile mon.ie/1cfHe0Z search sessions and over 500 diary entries. Our results high- light that when users engage in mobile search activity, they interact more with other mobile apps and for longer dura- Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or tions. Furthermore certain categories of mobile apps are more classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed prevalent in sessions involving search, compared to sessions for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full cita- tion on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than with no search activity. Our core contributions are: ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or re- publish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission • We define and introduce cross app and search interactions and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected]. as an important and challenging research opportunity in the CHI 2015, April 18 - 23 2015, Seoul, Republic of Korea Copyright is held by the owner/author(s). Publication rights licensed to ACM. ACM 978-1-4503-3145- field of mobile HCI and mobile information retrieval. 6/15/04$15.00 http://dx.doi.org/10.1145/2702123.2702486 • We analyze and characterize app and search interactions highlighted the prevalence of communications related apps from a unique perspective, combining real-world in-situ throughout the day, with certain categories of apps being used search and app usage with qualitative insights. more often at certain times, e.g. Clock in the morning. Tossell • We discuss what our findings mean for future mobile infor- et al. [25] looked at Web use on smartphones and found that mation seeking services. native internet applications like Mail, Facebook, Maps and Weather are visited twice as much as browsers. These studies provide us with a concrete understanding on the types of mo- RELATED WORK bile app interactions among modern smartphone users, how- Significant effort has been placed on understanding people’s ever they suffer from a lack of understanding on the specifics daily information needs and how those needs are addressed of what’s being done within the applications themselves. [10, 6]. Studies focused on mobile information needs high- light that 72% of mobile needs are influenced by explicit con- There are of course a few exceptions. For example, McGregor textual factors including activity, location, time and conver- et al. [18] use a video-data collection method to record 100 sation [21]. The act of fulfilling information needs is also af- days of iPhone use and highlight 3 distinct usage patterns: fected by contexts [5], with location being particularly influ- micro-breaks, digital knitting and reading. Lee et al. [17] ential [15]. Furthermore, the internet is a prominent means of explored if and how app usage relates to smartphone overuse addressing mobile information needs [21] in particular among and addiction in college studies. And most recently Ferreria experienced mobile Internet users [12]. et al. [11] looked at app micro-usage and found that 40% of all app launches last less than 15 seconds and such short in- As mobile device use has become more prominent, there has teraction happen mostly when a person is at home and alone. been a growing interest in understanding how and why people access and consume online content via their mobile phones. Work by Brown et al. [4] is particularly relevant. Using inno- Some of this research focuses on behaviors of early-stage vative video data collection of everyday smartphone use, they smartphone devices, e.g. [16, 9], while other work attempts to focus on what prompts the use of particular applications at shed light on modern device use [4]. Qualitative studies have specific times or in specific situations, focusing on web search highlighted that the majority of mobile Web access occurs and maps use. They highlight ‘occasioned search’, that is in stationary, familiar environments like home and work [20, search triggered by the environment or local events. Our goal 7]. The main motivations for general mobile Web usage are is to expand upon these insights to explore the unique inter- awareness and staying up-to-date [23], while mobile search action between mobile search and general mobile app usage, motivations are more inclined to relate to curiosity [7]. Mo- specifically how search is influenced by app usage and how bile search has been shown to be a social act, often sparked app interactions influence mobile search actions. Brown et by conversations [9] and conducted in the presence of oth- al. also highlight the use of the mobile Web and mobile maps ers [7]. Similar social influences have been found for local interchangeably in information searches. In this paper we ex- mobile search [1, 24]. While these qualitative studies have amine such interactions but explore switching between search revealed interesting aspects of mobile search behavior, their and a range of mobile apps that smartphones users engage reliance on interviews, diaries and survey data mean they lack with daily, i.e. beyond just maps applications. details on actual search interactions. In summary, past work has explored mobile search and mo- Other research focused on analyzing actual Web usage pat- bile app usage primarily in isolation.