Abstract
Logging user interactions is fundamental to capturing and subsequently analysing user behaviours in the context of web-based Interactive Information Retrieval (IIR). However, logging is often implemented within experimental apparatus in a piecemeal fashion, leading to incomplete or noisy data. To address these issues, we present the LogUI logging framework. We use (now ubiquitous) contemporary web technologies to provide an easy-to-use yet powerful framework that can capture virtually any user interaction on a webpage. LogUI removes many of the complexities that must be considered for effective interaction logging.
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Notes
- 1.
The DOM is the tree-like structure of HTML elements that constitute a webpage.
- 2.
LogUI has been tested with Chrome, Edge, Firefox, Opera, and Safari.
- 3.
Note that the Application Server and LogUI Server are two entirely different processes, and can be run on separate computers (with CORS support enabled).
- 4.
LogUI therefore supports contemporary client-side web application frameworks.
- 5.
Metadata examples could include the docid for a document presented on a SERP, or, more generally, the condition a participant is assigned to in an A/B test.
- 6.
Features could include a UXJs-style [19] analysis interface, or screen capturing.
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Acknowledgements
This research has been supported by NWO projects SearchX (639.022.722) and Aspasia (015.013.027).
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Maxwell, D., Hauff, C. (2021). LogUI: Contemporary Logging Infrastructure for Web-Based Experiments. In: Hiemstra, D., Moens, MF., Mothe, J., Perego, R., Potthast, M., Sebastiani, F. (eds) Advances in Information Retrieval. ECIR 2021. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 12657. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-72240-1_59
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