Understanding complex casual leisure information needs: an analysis of search requests for books, games, movies and music
| Date | 18 October 2024 |
| Pages | 168-194 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/JD-03-2024-0070 |
| Published date | 18 October 2024 |
| Author | Toine Bogers,Maria Gäde,Marijn Koolen,Vivien Petras,Mette Skov |
Understanding complex
casual leisure information needs:
an analysis of search requests for
books, games, movies and music
Toine Bogers
IT University of Copenhagen, Kobenhavn, Denmark and
Aalborg Universitet, Aalborg, Denmark
Maria G€
ade
Berlin School of Library and Information Science, Humboldt-Universit€
at zu Berlin,
Berlin, Germany
Marijn Koolen
DHLab, KNAW Humanities Cluster, Huygens Institute, Amsterdam, Netherlands
Vivien Petras
Berlin School of Library and Information Science, Humboldt-Universit€
at zu Berlin,
Berlin, Germany, and
Mette Skov
Department of Communication and Psychology, Aalborg Universitet,
Aalborg, Denmark
Abstract
Purpose –Inthispaper, we introduce the CRISPS (CRoss-domaIn relevance aSPects Scheme) coding scheme for
complex information needs in the four leisure domains of books, games, movies and music. It categorizes the
relevance aspects people consider when searching for these resources. The coding scheme and findings help
search engines to better support complex information needs, both by prioritizing which aspects are easier to
classify automatically and by determining which information sources should be considered.
Design/methodology/approach –A cross-domain classification scheme for relevance aspects and
information needs in casual leisure domains (CRISPS) is developed and applied. The paper provides the
documentation of the scheme development and annotation process as well as a detailed, large-scale analysis of
2000 requests (500 per domain) and relevance aspects for four domains as expressed in complex search
requests in everyday life information seeking posted to online forums.
Findings –We identify and discuss relevance aspect frequencies, information need types and the described
search process of the requests. Furthermore, the coding scheme development and the annotation process are
documented and reflected on.
Originality/value –This is the first categorization and analysis of complex information needs in these four
leisure domains combined. The coding scheme and findings can be used to develop new types of search
interfaces that incorporate the kinds of relevance aspects identified in the scheme, allowing to express complex
needs in the form of structured queries.
Keywords Complex search tasks, Cross domain, Information need, Relevance aspects, Casual leisure search,
Classification
Paper type Research paper
1. Introduction
For many people, reading books, watching movies, playing games or listening to music is an
important aspect of their everyday lives, and they spend many hours on finding the next
JD
81,1
168
All authors contributed to the paper equally.
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:
https://www.emerald.com/insight/0022-0418.htm
Received 23 March 2024
Revised 20 May 2024
Accepted 6 June 2024
Journal of Documentation
Vol. 81 No. 1, 2025
pp. 168-194
© Emerald Publishing Limited
0022-0418
DOI 10.1108/JD-03-2024-0070
thing to read, watch, play or listen to. A better understanding of information needs in these
domains is important for aiding people in their efforts to find good items to enjoy and, by
extension, for designing better search and recommender systems.
Social media, online review platforms and discussion forums have changed the type,
variety and volume of information that is available about such casual leisure items when
compared to more traditional metadata-oriented item catalogs. These systems and
communities allow users to describe their experiences with and voice their opinions on
different aspects of the individual items. At the same time, online discussion forums allow
users to ask their community for help with complex information needs that search engines
and traditional item catalogs are unable to satisfy.
For many consumer items, these user experiences and opinions are commonly mined for
sentiment on specific (relevance) aspects of those items, both to provide up-to-date information
about public opinion of a company’s products and to improve recommender systems by
enriching both item metadata and user profiles with relevance aspect-based preferences.
For some item categories, identifying the aspects that are most relevant to users can be
straightforward: for a laptop, aspects like processor speed, memory size and disk space, quality
of keyboard and camera as well as the physical properties of the laptop case are important.
For shoes, their size, cost, material and durability are likely to be important properties.
However, for some types of items, it is less evident which aspects people care about the
most. For casual leisure items – such as books, movies, games andmusic – physical aspects are
probably less relevant. What consumers care most about varies, but many aspects are
intangible and are typically not described in traditional item metadata, such as sound design,
gameplay mechanics or the mood an item invokes. Some aspects may even be hard to describe
for catalogers and consumers alike. Yet, such aspects may well be mentioned in the reviews
and discussions where people describe their experiences with the books, games, movies and
music they have consumed. This information has the potential to be leveraged by search
engines and recommender systems if it were mapped and analyzed properly. To better inform
the design of such systems, this article provides a detailed, large-scale analysis of the types of
relevance aspects for four domains as expressed in complex search requests posted to online
forums. More specifically, we address the following research questions:
RQ1. What aspects do people take into consideration when searching for and selecting
books, games, movies or music?
RQ2. To what extent do these domains overlap and differ with each other?
RQ3. What different types of casual leisure information needs do people have, and how
do they vary by domain and relevance aspect distribution?
RQ4. How can our relevance aspect scheme inform system design?
1.1 Contributions
In previous work, we have analyzed complex requests from the domains of books, movies
(Bogers et al., 2018) and games (Bogers et al., 2019) in isolation. We found that in each of these
domains, searchers have complex information needs that contain some aspects that are
typically captured in metadata (e.g. creator, title, genre or language), but also aspects relating
to the structure (e.g. story or game structure), experience (e.g. what kind of mood does it
invoke) and context of use (e.g. something that keeps you entertained during a long flight).
While we noticed many similarities and some differences between these domains,
a systematic cross-domain comparison was and is still missing. To the best of our
knowledge, this article represents the first cross-domain scheme for relevance aspects that
combines and contrasts four domains. Our study has the following contributions:
Journal of
Documentation
169
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