User participation in CLIR research
Daniela Petrelli, M. Beaulieu, Mark Sanderson · White Rose Research Online (University of Leeds, The University of Sheffield, University of York) · 2002
It would appear that little effort is being made to identify who are the users of CLIR systems and to fully understand how actual users can make use of such systems. An extensive user study to explore the potential use of a CLIR system identified a gap between current assumptions made about CLIR systems use and the results of the investigation confirming that to date, real users and real uses have not influenced the development of CLIR systems. Preliminary results led to the expansion of our research agenda to include both laboratory and field experiments in order to better understand the cognitive phenomena of searching cross-language and at the same time to get a measure of the reality. This paper reports on the three steps we consider mandatory for gaining a full understanding of CLIR: getting to know about users and uses; envisaging design solutions; and performing user evaluations. 1.