Books' interest grading and dwell time in metadata in selecting fiction

Abstract

It is studied by eye-tracking how searchers explore metadata in book pages when selecting novels of varying interest levels. 30 participants searched interesting novels for four search tasks in two public library catalogs. The results showed that the associations of dwell time in book pages and in many metadata types, and novels' interest grading were non-linear. Most time was used for assessing a somewhat interesting novel compared to a non-interesting or very interesting one. Therefore, the binary classification of interest grading hides and over-emphasizes the contribution of "somewhat interesting" category in modeling interest by dwell time in book pages or metadata. Non-linear regression models showed that the explanatory power was greater in a three-level classification of interest grading compared to a binary classification.