A User Study on Clarifying Comparative Questions
Alexander Bondarenko, Ekaterina Shirshakova, Matthias Hagen · 2022
Vague or ambiguous queries can make it difficult for a search engine to correctly interpret a user’s underlying information need. A relatively “simple” solution then is result diversification to cover different interpretations, while in more “conversational” search interfaces, the user can be prompted to clarify their original request. We study clarification in the scenario of comparative questions that ask to compare several options. In our experiment that reflects a conversational search interface with a clarification component, 70% of the study participants find clarifications useful to retrieve relevant results for questions with unclear comparison aspects (e.g., “Which is better, Bali or Phuket?”) or without explicit comparison objects and aspects (e.g., “What is the best antibiotic?”).