Don't Break the Flow: Supporting Deferral and Review of Potentially Serendipitous Information in Library Search

Online digital library searchers who find themselves engaged in multiple concurrent complex search tasks may encounter potentially serendipitous information for one task while pursuing another. This can propel them in unexpected and exciting directions that enhance their knowledge. However, existing search interfaces provide limited support for searchers to handle such serendipitous information encounters, forcing them into an often disruptive choice between continuing their current search or pursuing the new discovery. To address this issue, we introduce Revelio: an academic digital library search interface based on a ‘save now, organize later’ workflow. Revelio provides a low-effort mechanism for deferring potentially serendipitous information encounters, and a semantic similarity approach for subsequently reviewing and saving such search results within a multi-workspace structure. We evaluated Revelio in a between-subjects controlled study with 28 participants using a novel experimental design that creates the opportunity for serendipitous information encounters within a concurrent complex academic search task context. Compared to those who used a baseline search interface, participants who used Revelio were able to effectively defer and subsequently review encountered information, resulting in positive opinions about the interface, increased performance in both prescribed search tasks, and greater perceived knowledge gain. These findings demonstrate the value of search interfaces that explicitly support the deferral and subsequent review of potentially serendipitous information.