A Theoretical Framework for Conversational Search

This paper studies conversational approaches to information retrieval, presenting a theory and model of information interaction in a chat setting. In particular, we consider the question of what properties would be desirable for a conversational information retrieval system so that the system can allow users to answer a variety of information needs in a natural and efficient manner. We study past work on human conversations, and propose a small set of properties that taken together could measure the extent to which a system is conversational. Following this, we present a theoretical model of a conversational system that implements the properties. We describe how this system could be implemented, making the action space of an conversational search agent explicit. Our analysis of this model shows that while theoretical, the model could be practically implemented to satisfy the desirable properties presented. In doing so, we show that the properties are also feasible.