# Understanding Mobile Search Task Relevance and User Behaviour in Context

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/1812.07081 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/1812.07081/

## Key facts

- Cited by 2 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- First posted on arXiv 17 Dec 2018.

## Built on by (most cited first, 2 of 2)

- [Context-Aware Target Apps Selection and Recommendation for Enhancing Personal Mobile Assistants](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2101.03394/) (2021)
- [Mobile-MMLU: A Mobile Intelligence Language Understanding Benchmark](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2503.20786/) (2025)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Improvements in mobile technologies have led to a dramatic change in how and when people access and use information, and is having a profound impact on how users address their daily information needs. Smart phones are rapidly becoming our main method of accessing information and are frequently used to perform `on-the-go' search tasks. As research into information retrieval continues to evolve, evaluating search behaviour in context is relatively new. Previous research has studied the effects of context through either self-reported diary studies or quantitative log analysis; however, neither approach is able to accurately capture context of use at the time of searching. In this study, we aim to gain a better understanding of task relevance and search behaviour via a task-based user study (n=31) employing a bespoke Android app. The app allowed us to accurately capture the user's context when completing tasks at different times of the day over the period of a week. Through analysis of the collected data, we gain a better understanding of how using smart phones on the go impacts search behaviour, search performance and task relevance and whether or not the actual context is an important factor.