An Expectation-Based Model of Web Search Behaviour

An important issue when evaluating a search tool is the satisfaction that is expressed by its users. While there are many factors that affect satisfaction, we believe that users' expectations affect their evaluation of a query's response, and in turn, their satisfaction. We validate this perspective by measuring individuals' expectation, judgement of response quality, and overall satisfaction for a set of queries. Our experiment indicates that, when responses are grouped according to whether they confirm or disconfirm users' expectations, expectation significantly correlates with both query response quality and user satisfaction. However, response quality better correlates with satisfaction than does expectation, suggesting that expectation is not the only factor that influences the determination of response quality.