How do people interact in conversational speech-only search tasks: A preliminary analysis

We present preliminary findings from a study of mixed initiative conversational behaviour for informational search in an acoustic setting. The aim of the observational study is to reveal insights into how users would conduct searches over voice where a screen is absent but where users are able to converse interactively with the search system. We conducted alaboratory-based observational study of 13 pairs of participants each completing three search tasks with different cognitive complexity levels. The communication between the pairs was analyzed for interaction patterns used in the search process. This setup mimics the situation of a user interacting with a search system via a speech-only interface.