A Conceptual Framework for Implicit Evaluation of Conversational Search Interfaces
This work addresses the need for more comprehensive evaluation in conversational search research, which is incremental as it builds on prior studies without introducing new methods or data.
The paper tackles the problem of limited evaluation methods for conversational search systems by proposing a multi-dimensional framework that includes search experience, knowledge gain, usability, cognitive load, and user experience, based on existing studies.
Conversational search (CS) has recently become a significant focus of the information retrieval (IR) research community. Multiple studies have been conducted which explore the concept of conversational search. Understanding and advancing research in CS requires careful and detailed evaluation. Existing CS studies have been limited to evaluation based on simple user feedback on task completion. We propose a CS evaluation framework which includes multiple dimensions: search experience, knowledge gain, software usability, cognitive load and user experience, based on studies of conversational systems and IR. We introduce these evaluation criteria and propose their use in a framework for the evaluation of CS systems.