Understanding the Intent Behind Mobile Information Needs

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Summary:
In this paper, Karen Church and Barry Smyth (of Telefonica Research and University College Dublin respectively) lay out their study of user's mobile content needs and mobile contexts.  The explosion of mobile device popularity across the world (3.5 billion subscribers in 2007) has led to new patterns of information retrieval and new needs for users.  The authors analyze previous work dealing with what mobile users search for and why; the research indicated that 50% of the top mobile search queries were related to adult content (though only 8% of all users in the study engaged in any kind of search at all) and that intent for search could usually be attributed to a need for awareness or status-checking behavior.


The authors conducted a four-week study of 20 participants who were asked to keep a diary of all their information needs while they were at home, work, or on the move.  Participants logged the date and time, location, and information need, as well as any additional comments they had.  The study generated 405 diary entries (approx. 20.3 per person), the majority of which concerned on-the-go conditions for mobile information need.  The researchers created three categories for user intent: informational (how-to's, advice, showtimes), geographical (location-based or directions), and PIM or personal information management (PIN codes, friend requests, to-do lists).  30% of entries were geographical in nature, and 42% of entries were non-informational.  PIM entries represented 11% of the entries.  


Overall, the study indicated that mobile users look for considerably different information than standard Web users, seeming to have a greater need for geographical-based information such as directions or service locations while they were on-the-move; user information needs also seemed to revolve heavily around social interaction (friend requests, questions asked in conversation, status updates etc).


Discussion:
The research presented in this paper is very relevant to current trends in technology - users are gravitating more and more to mobile content, and the advent of user-friendly mobile browsing devices like the iPhone and the upcoming iPad will only heighten this trend.  I found the categorizations made by the researchers to be pretty accurate - in the brief period that I owned a web-enabled phone, I used it primarily for getting directions, checking Facebook or Twitter, and managing email.  This falls right in line with the results of the study.  However, in the future I think user content needs will shift more and more toward entertainment in a variety of contexts and locations as more content is pushed to the mobile space and bandwidth increases.