Eye-tracking analysis of user behaviour and performance in web search on large and small screens

Abstract

In recent years, searching the web on mobile devices has become enormously popular. Because mobile devices have relatively small screens and show fewer search results, search behaviour with mobile devices may be different from that with desktops or laptops. Therefore, considering these differences may suggest better, more efficient, designs for mobile search engines. In this experiment, we use eye-tracking to explore user behaviour and performance. We analyse web searches with two task types on two differently sized screens: one for a desktop and the other for a mobile device. In addition, we examine the relationships between search performance and several search behaviours to allow further investigation of the differences engendered by the screens. We found that users have more difficulty extracting information from search results pages on the smaller screens, although they exhibit less eye movement as a result of an infrequent use of the scroll function. However, in terms of search performance, our findings suggest that there is no significant difference between the two screens in time spent on search results pages and the accuracy of finding answers. As a consequence, this suggests that mobile devices do not need to display as many results as desktop screens, and we should consider alternative ways to present search results for small screens by considering the effect of decreased eye movement and use of the scroll function. We suggest several possible ideas for the presentation design of search results pages on small devices. Show more