Search systems on the Web rely on user input to generate relevant results. Since early information retrieval systems, users are trained to issue keyword searches and adapt to the language of the system. Recent research has shown that users often withhold detailed information about their initial information need, although they are able to express it in natural language. We therefore conduct a user study (N = 139) to investigate how four different design variants of search interfaces can encourage the user to reveal more information. Our results show that a chatbot-inspired search interface can increase the number of mentioned product attributes by 84% and promote natural language formulations by 139% in comparison to a standard search bar interface.

翻译：网络搜索系统依赖用户输入来生成相关结果。自早期信息检索系统起，用户便被训练使用关键词搜索并适应系统语言。近期研究表明，尽管用户能够用自然语言表达其初始信息需求，但他们往往隐瞒其中的详细信息。因此，我们开展了一项用户研究（N=139），以探究四种不同设计的搜索界面如何鼓励用户透露更多信息。结果显示，与标准搜索栏界面相比，受聊天机器人启发的搜索界面能使提及的产品属性数量增加84%，并使自然语言表述的使用提升139%。