A Tool for Conducting User Studies on Mobile Devices
This provides a practical solution for researchers studying mobile information retrieval and user behavior, though it is incremental as it builds on existing app-based data collection methods.
The paper tackles the need for a tool to collect mobile query logs and conduct user studies on Android devices by developing Omicron, an app that gathers queries, documents, sensor data, and user interactions, and includes monitoring capabilities.
With the ever-growing interest in the area of mobile information retrieval and the ongoing fast development of mobile devices and, as a consequence, mobile apps, an active research area lies in studying users' behavior and search queries users submit on mobile devices. However, many researchers require to develop an app that collects useful information from users while they search on their phones or participate in a user study. In this paper, we aim to address this need by providing a comprehensive Android app, called Omicron, which can be used to collect mobile query logs and perform user studies on mobile devices. Omicron, at its current version, can collect users' mobile queries, relevant documents, sensor data as well as user activity and interaction data in various study settings. Furthermore, we designed Omicron in such a way that it is conveniently extendable to conduct more specific studies and collect other types of sensor data. Finally, we provide a tool to monitor the participants and their data both during and after the collection process.