Language Scent: Exploring Cross-Language Information Navigation
This work addresses the challenge for multilingual users in navigating information across languages, offering design implications for search systems, though it is incremental in extending existing theory to a new scenario.
The paper tackled the problem of multilingual users switching between languages for information seeking, which is unsupported by current siloed systems, by introducing the concept of language scent and designing the Niffler search system; a lab study with 16 participants showed that Niffler facilitated exploratory strategies and led to diverse information gathering.
While multilingual users often switch between languages when seeking information, this process remains undersupported by current systems where information is typically siloed by language. Our formative study reveals that users' cross-language transitions are guided by their perceived value of switching to a language, a concept we formalize as language scent. Language scent extends Pirolli and Card's theory of information scent to multilingual scenarios by considering meta-level strategy formation when navigating between different languages. To support language scent, we designed Niffler, a search system that augments language scent and supports cross-language information navigation through contextual cues, in-situ tools, and reflection support. A lab study with 16 multilingual speakers showed that Niffler facilitated the formation and execution of exploratory and granular search strategies and leads to diverse information being gathered. Our findings establish language scent as a valuable lens on cross-language information seeking, highlighting language's role in enabling access to broader information and offering concrete implications for the design of multilingual search systems.