Shahriyar Amini, Vidya Setlur, Zhengxin Xi, Eiji Hayashi, and Jason I. Hong

International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction with Mobile Devices and Services (MobileHCI)

August 2013

People use mobile devices to search, locate and discover local information around them. Mobile local search is frequently a social activity. This paper presents the results of a survey and an exploratory user study of collaborative mobile local search. The survey results show that people frequently search with others and that these searches often involve the use of more than one mobile device. We prototyped a collaborative mobile search app, which we used as a tool to investigate users’ collaborative mobile search behavior. Our study results provide insights into how users collaborate while performing search. We also provide design considerations to inform future mobile local search technologies.

mobile, search