Personality traits influence how individuals engage, behave, and make decisions during the information-seeking process. However, few studies have linked personality to observable search behaviors. This study aims to characterize personality traits through a multimodal time-series model that integrates eye-tracking data and gaze missingness–periods when the user’s gaze is not captured. This approach is based on the idea that people often look away when they think, signaling disengagement or reflection. We conducted a user study with 25 participants, who used an interactive application on an iPad, allowing them to engage with digital artifacts from a museum. We rely on raw gaze data from an eye tracker, minimizing preprocessing so that behavioral patterns can be preserved without substantial data cleaning. From this perspective, we trained models to predict personality traits using gaze signals. Our results from a five-fold cross-validation study demonstrate strong predictive performance across all five dimensions: Neuroticism (Macro F1 = 77.69%), Conscientiousness (74.52%), Openness (77.52%), Agreeableness (73.09%), and Extraversion (76.69%). The ablation study examines whether the absence of gaze information affects the model performance, demonstrating that incorporating missingness improves multimodal time-series modeling. The full model, which integrates both time-series signals and missingness information, achieves 10-15% higher accuracy and macro F1 scores across all Big Five traits compared to the model without time-series signals and missingness. These findings provide evidence that personality can be inferred from search-related gaze behavior and demonstrate the value of incorporating missing gaze data into time-series multimodal modeling.

Migrants moving across national boundaries are experiencing a transition—one that requires them to readapt and reestablish themselves in new information environments. In experiencing a transition, migrants need information on the process of the move and on life in their new country. Navigating new information environments can prove difficult. Usually, that information will be structured and presented differently than ‘at home’: migrants need to adapt to a whole new digital environment, and often do so while retaining informational ties to home. Language, bureaucratic, and emotional barriers make it difficult for migrants to find the information they need in their new environment; and instead push them to rely on familiar information sources from their home countries that contain less specific and relevant information. However, migrants also bring their unique information experiences and habits to their new digital environments. The exposure to multiple digital environments can be a strength and better equip migrants to deal with different types of information. This paper examines both the barriers migrants face and the skills they use to navigate new information landscapes. It makes a case for considering migrants as a specific user group for many information tools and resources, when user testing, and makes suggestions for further research that can be done to support and learn from migrants. Migrants are an under-studied and under-considered group in the CHIIR community, and this paper is a call to action to address that gap.

Eye-tracking data has been shown to correlate with a user's knowledge level and query formulation behaviour. While previous work has focused primarily on eye gaze fixations for attention analysis, often requiring additional contextual information, our study investigates the memory-related cognitive dimension by relying solely on pupil dilation and gaze velocity to infer users' topic familiarity and query specificity without needing any contextual information. Using eye-tracking data collected via a lab user study N=18, we achieved a Macro F1 score of 71.25% for predicting topic familiarity with a Gradient Boosting classifier, and a Macro F1 score of 60.54% with a k-nearest neighbours (KNN) classifier for query specificity. Furthermore, we developed a novel annotation guideline - specifically tailored for question answering - to manually classify queries as Specific or Non-specific. This study demonstrates the feasibility of eye-tracking to better understand topic familiarity and query specificity in search.

In a world where misinformation is abundant, and conspiracy theorists urge others to 'do their own research’, how do people use evidence in online discussions? What types of evidence do they provide, and for what purpose? Decades of human information interaction research has focused on making it easy to share and discuss information online; and decades of information literacy research have examined how to promote critical thinking and evaluation. However, there is a lack both of systematic analyses of evidence use in online discussions, and the ways community norms affect use of evidence in those discussions. We present a mixed methods analysis of the use of three formats of external evidence (images, links, and direct quotation by using blockquotes) across three Reddit communities with very different norms. One focuses on promoting conspiracy theories, another on debunking them, and a third on personal view change. We investigate the use of these evidence formats within and between communities to understand how evidence is used in different kinds of conversation. Our findings support the design of online information tools that promote good evidentiary practice.

Qualitative research is essential for how people interact with information and informing the design of interactive information retrieval systems. However, it is often challenging to do well. There are a plethora of possible approaches, often complementary but sometimes at odds with each other and combining quantitative and qualitative approaches to data collection adds further complexity. In this tutorial, focusing on qualitative data collection approaches, we will provide attendees with a comprehensive toolkit of CHIIR-relevant qualitative methods, including interviews and both naturalistic and ‘in the wild’ observations. We will also support development of an agile skillset so attendees can adopt or adapt qualitative approaches to meet their research aims. We will cover a core of flexible, proven and rigorous practice that will provide a thorough grounding in how to plan and conduct high-quality rigorous research. The tutorial leaders come from different backgrounds and can provide insight into how to use qualitative methods for attendees from all disciplinary origins. On completion of the tutorial, you will be able to plan and conduct rigorous qualitative investigations into how people interact with information, with potential to result in high-impact information interaction research.

Novel short video platforms such as TikTok and Instagram Reels often entertain, can inform and may persuade. Recent human-information interaction research has demonstrated the potential for information encounters on social media to sow the seeds of view change. However, little research has examined the role of this new type of social media platform in view change. To examine this role, we conducted a two-week diary study, followed by interviews, with 12 regular users of TikTok and Instagram Reels. All participants reported viewing videos that influenced their views. They predominantly passively encountered these videos on their personalized feeds, rather than actively seeking them. Content verification was limited, with many participants voicing (potentially misplaced) trust in influencers and accessible experts. Reassuringly though, some participants demonstrated a higher level of critical engagement. Overall, our findings highlight the strong persuasive power of short video platforms and the risk they may be used to misinform or manipulate. Based on our findings, we discuss key implications for research and platform design.

Information seekers often want 'something just like this', an information object (song, book, movie) like one they already know about. This approach is the premise of many modern recommender systems, which ask information seekers for examples of things they like in order to return similar things. This type of information seeking, though, is not particularly well supported by search engines, partly because the ways in which objects can be alike are multifaceted and difficult to articulate, partly because the analogue might emerge in the process of information seeking. This approach to information seeking has been touched on repeatedly in information science literature but not examined in detail. In this paper, we present a pair of studies that explore both how people seek information using analogues online and the ways in which information objects might be alike. Our results offer a novel understanding of a previously underexplored but common behaviour, addressing how analogues are identified, how they are used in information seeking, and the ways in which objects can be analogous from an information seeker's perspective. Our work can support the development of recommender systems, conversational search approaches, and digital interfaces that support this common but little-examined type of information seeking.

Abstract Information is powerful; it can influence peoples' views and, in turn, their behavior. Much recent research and discussion on the role information plays in view change has focused on filter bubbles, echo chambers and misinformation and how they might influence what people think and how they act. However, no prior work has focused specifically on understanding the human information behavior (HIB) that drives and facilitates view change. We report findings from interviews with 18 people who recently changed views on issues they considered important. We found a tight symbiotic relationship between HIB and view change; passive information encountering sparked change, often spurring follow‐up active seeking and verification which progressed the change to a “point of no return,” supported making the change and reinforced the decision to change. When shared, information that contributed to the change sometimes sparked changes in others (as did expressing or debating the change), serving as an information encounter that perpetuated a cycle of HIB and view change. This understanding of the integral role of HIB in view change can inform policy and systems design to promote view change autonomy and a broader research agenda of understanding HIB to support democratic principles and values.

Measurement is a core tool for improving information interaction. What is measured and how it is measured influences how we perceive the efficacy of retrieval and other interactions. While some measures have become ubiquitous, such as precision and recall, there are many other facets of information interaction we either immature, weakly accepted or only used occasionally. This workshop seeks to develop our metrics for information interaction and retrieval, finding novel measures, or innovative adaptations of existing measures, to create a better experimental toolset to improve our understanding of information interaction, and help develop more effective systems and interactions that support it.

Qualitative research is a fundamental part of investigating information interactions, but is often challenging to do well. There are contesting theories and approaches, and combining quantitative and qualitative work adds further complexity to qualitative research. In this tutorial, we provide attendees with a comprehensive toolkit of qualitative methods. We will cover a core of flexible, proven and rigorous practice that will give even a novice a thorough grounding in the decisions and approaches to develop high-quality rigorous research. The tutorial leaders come from different backgrounds, and can provide insight into how to adopt qualitative methods whatever your own disciplinary origins. On completion of the tutorial, you will be able to design and execute sound qualitative investigations that lead to high-impact information interaction research.

Online misinformation is a fiendish problem. Demonstrably false information propagates faster and more widely than truth and this has heralded a technological arms race. One possible mechanism for addressing misinformation is social: there is evidence seeing misinformation being challenged can ‘inoculate’ a reader against it. To date, no research has examined how discussions sparked by misinformation play out; What are the different ways in which people reply to posts containing misinformation? How does the discussion flow in each case? Are there differences between platforms? We address these questions through an inductive qualitative analysis of discussion threads on three public discussion platforms (Twitter, YouTube and two news sites) and on three topics (COVID, Brexit and climate change). We present a classification scheme of types of replies to misinformation, and show that replies show different patterns between platforms. Knowing how people reply to posts that contain misinformation enriches our knowledge of ‘human misinformation interaction,’ and provides an understanding of how socio-technical factors in platform design can reduce the risk of misinformation spreading.

Understanding complex information behaviour in an empirical, ecologically valid way is difficult at the best of times. It verges on impossible with artificial environments and tightly constrained tasks such as those found in usability labs. Similarly artificial measures of user satisfaction that are readily available from test collections are unlikely to provoke revolutionary insights. The alternative is to study user behaviour in the wild, however this involves complex trade-offs between method, precision, privacy, interpretation and generalizability. This tutorial addresses both qualitative and quantitative methods, and how to balance the risks of studying unpredictable but fully human behaviour, particularly during and following a pandemic.

It is a ‘truth universally acknowledged’ that people prefer to minimize encounters with information they disagree with and ignore it where they find it. Algorithms purportedly support this avoidance by creating filter bubbles filled only with agreeable information potentially increasing polarisation and undermining democracy. How accurate is this portrayal, though? Recent research has begun to cast doubt. We challenge these assumptions and report a two-phase analysis of filter bubble-bursting behavior. The first phase reports novel incidental findings from an interview study on the role of information interaction in view change. Participants demonstrated a clear interest in a diversity of information, including information specifically opposed to their own views. The second phase reports findings from a diary study specifically designed to investigate people's interactions with information that reflected a different view to theirs. We examine how people found disagreeable information, how they responded to it and the factors affecting their responses. We find that people will sometimes actively seek and engage with disagreeable information, rather than avoid and ignore it. Our findings pave the way for future information interfaces that support this previously undiscussed information interaction.

Where do queries -- the words searchers type into a search box -- come from? The Information Retrieval community understands the performance of queries and search engines extensively, and has recently begun to examine the impact of query variation, showing that different queries for the same information need produce different results. In an information environment where bad actors try to nudge searchers toward misinformation, this is worrisome. The source of query variation -- searcher characteristics, contextual or linguistic prompts, cognitive biases, or even the influence of external parties -- while studied in a piecemeal fashion by other research communities has not been studied by ours. In this paper we draw on a variety of literatures (including information seeking, psychology, and misinformation), and report some small experiments to describe what is known about where queries come from, and demonstrate a clear literature gap around the source of query variations in IR. We chart a way forward for IR to research, document and understand this important question, with a view to creating search engines that provide more consistent, accurate and relevant search results regardless of the searcher's framing of the query.

Conducting studies involving actual users is a recurring challenge in information retrieval. In this tutorial we will address the main strategic and tactical choices for engaging with, designing and executing user studies, considering both evaluation and formative investigation. The tension between reproducibility and ensuring natural user behaviour will be a recurring focus, seeking to help individual researchers make an intentional and well-argued choice for their research. The presenters have over fifty years of combined experience working in interactive information retrieval, and information interaction in general.

If reading was simply ingesting information, it would not matter what format that information arrived in-whether it be digital, poor quality newsprint, or the most beautiful hardback book. We do make choices about our reading, though, based on other factors than informational content. Some of these have been discussed in the literature, including convenience, preferences between paper and screen, and acquisition preferences. In this paper, we discuss books and reading as a performance. We examine the visual and cultural elements of books that influence the decisions we make about privacy or performance. We use these reflections to suggest a new form of information interaction, and make suggestions for a future program of research to support this new interaction.

Reading is not simply a solitary activity. It occurs in a social context, which influences both a reader's choices about what to read, and their understanding about what they read. Digitally, direct personal communication and online discussions are two examples of social reading activity. However, our understanding of social reading is still young: we know some elements of the activity, but we lack a comprehensive picture of its behavioural elements and how they interact. This study aims to bridge that existing gap.

Metrics of human behaviour and effort lie at the heart of improving information interaction and retrieval. However, while some measurements have become predominant, such as precision and recall, there are many elements of information interaction where either measures have yet to be created, accepted, or widely used. This workshop seeks to tease out these areas, finding novel measures, or novel uses of existing measures, to create better experimental tools to improve our understanding of information interaction, and help develop better systems to support it.

Understanding complex information behaviour in an empirical, ecologically valid way is difficult at the best of times. It verges on impossible with artificial environments and tightly constrained tasks such as those found in usability labs. Similarly, artificial measures of user satisfaction that are readily available from test collections are unlikely to provoke revolutionary insights. The alternative is to study user behaviour in the wild, however this involves complex trade-offs between method, precision, privacy, interpretation and generalizability. This tutorial addresses both qualitative and quantitative methods, and how to balance the risks of studying unpredictable but fully human behaviour.

While computers causing chaos is a common social trope, nearly the entirety of the history of computing is dedicated to generating order. Typical interactive information retrieval tasks ask computers to support the traversal and exploration of large, complex information spaces. The implicit assumption is that they are to support users in simplifying the complexity (i.e. in creating order from chaos). But for some types of task, particularly those that involve the creative application or synthesis of knowledge or the creation of new knowledge, this assumption may be incorrect. It is increasingly evident that perfect order-and the systems we create with it-support highly-structured information tasks well, but provide poor support for less-structured tasks. We need digital information environments that help create a little more chaos from order to spark creative thinking and knowledge creation. This paper argues for the need for information systems that offer what we term 'bounded chaos', and offers research directions that may support the creation of such interfaces

There has been considerable hype about filter bubbles and echo chambers influencing the views of information consumers. The fear is that these technologies are undermining democracy by swaying opinion and creating an uninformed, polarised populace. The literature in this space is mostly techno-centric, addressing the impact of technology. In contrast, our work is the first research in the information interaction field to examine changing viewpoints from a human-centric perspective. It provides a new understanding of view change and how we might support informed, autonomous view change behaviour. We interviewed 18 participants about a self-identified change of view, and the information touchpoints they engaged with along the way. In this paper we present the information types and sources that informed changes of viewpoint, and the ways in which our participants interacted with that information. We describe our findings in the context of the techno-centric literature and suggest principles for designing digital information environments that support user autonomy and reflection in viewpoint formation.

Information interactions are strongly affected by the place where they occur. Specific locations are often associated with searches on particular topics, and individual users perform different tasks in habituated places. A classic example of habituated space is the commuter who regularly reads the news on the train. This paper investigates these associations through four user studies that examine different uses of place in information interaction. Through this, we reveal the ways in which the location of information interactions makes them effective or ineffective. This extends our interpretation of the role of place in information interaction beyond established foci such as location-based search.

Libraries increasingly offer much of their collection online, rendering it invisible or unavailable to readers who, for reasons of information experience, prefer to browse the shelves. Although the evidence that shelf browsing is an important part of information behavior is increasing, information browsing as a behavior is somewhat of a black box (in contrast to web browsing, which is relatively well understood). It seems likely from early work that browsing is not, in fact, a monolithic behavior, but rather a set of behaviors and goals. The typologies presented in these works, however, are of a too high level to offer much insight into what support is needed for successful online browsing. In contrast, a recent spate of speculative browsing technologies meet some browsing needs, but offer little theoretical understanding of how systems support browsing. The major contribution of this article is a new typology of library browsing behavior based on recent observations of browsing behavior in libraries. The secondary contribution is an understanding of the interface features that would support these types of information browsers in an online environment.

This paper investigates the life of books on physical library shelves. Most existing data on the use of library books uses logs to quantify loans, or user interviews to obtain insights into their use. We deploy a new specialised technique, photographing library shelves systematically over a week-long period, and noting the changes to the positioning of individual books, and each shelf as a whole. Through this indirect observation, we demonstrate the use of shelved books within, rather than on leaving, the library. We reveal the first insight into within-library book use, and demonstrate that in-library use appears to be more common and over a longer period than previous research suggests.

One of the major failings of ebook collections is the lack of readily available browsing mechanisms particularly in academic libraries. This stands in sharp contrast to the library shelves, and is bemoaned by readers as a reason to avoid the use of ebooks. Nonetheless earlier work has identified limited ebook co-borrowing; in this paper we address the relationships between these ebooks with a view to understanding how readers accessed them in a single session.

Library shelf browsing is a much-loved but little-understood form of information seeking. Attempts have been made to replicate or replace it online, however they have not typically been based on a principled understanding of the goals and behaviours of readers. This paper addresses the behaviour of readers, presenting an empirical examination of the mechanics of library shelf browsing. We note some previously undescribed behaviours, such as placemarking, and some hitherto unknown details such as the large number of books browsers consider. We situate our findings in the literature, and use them to drive design recommendations.

The physical library shelves are regularly the site of serendipitous information discoveries, and are often sought out for this purpose. However, while some drawbacks to the shelves as information gateways have been documented, none to our knowledge relate to their capacity for facilitating serendipity. We present findings from a qualitative study of serendipity at the library shelves. This study uncovered a new drawback that we term the "seeking-encountering tension". On one hand, this tension entices people towards the relatively high-risk, high-reward activity of exploring new information avenues discovered serendipitously and, on the other, draws them back towards the relative safety of goal-directed information-seeking. We discuss some of the factors that contribute to this tension, and provide design suggestions for mitigating it. Understanding this tension can inform the design of physical and digital information environments that provide users the agency to switch between more and less focused information-seeking at will.

What does it mean for a reader to borrow an ebook? Ebook technology means that borrowing can take different forms, for example printing and reading. We do not know, though, which of these options readers actually use. Ebook technology generates logs that allow us to understand ebook borrowing patterns over time, both by individual readers and in aggregate. Despite the ready availability of ebook logs, this area remains under-researched. In this paper we present an exploratory log analysis of ebook borrowing, comparing printing and reading, discovery patterns, single- and multiple-book sessions and identifying specific borrowing patterns.