File hyper-searching explained

There are two main ways to retrieve files: hierarchical navigation and query-based search. File retrieval studies have consistently found navigation preference, with search used only as a last resort when users forget in which folder they stored the target file. However, a minority of people, referred to as hyper-searchers, perform far more searches than others. This study aimed to discover why hyper-searchers conduct searches far more than the rest of the population. To do so, a group of hyper-searchers (n = 50) and a control group (n = 50) were assigned using a double-check allocation method which included both self-estimation and a retrieval task. On average, the search percentage in the retrieval task for the hyper-searchers (67%) was over 13 times higher than for the control group (5%). The study gives ample evidence that hyper-searchers’ files were less organized than the control group. As a result, their average navigation failure percentage (23%) was almost 4 times higher than the control group (6%), and hyper-searchers needed to resort to search. Our results suggest that hyper-searchers’ files were less well-organized because they scored less on the conscientiousness trait of the Big Five personality questionnaire; and in turn, having less organized files forced them to search more.