This paper presents results from an initial user
study exploring the relationship between system
effectiveness as quantified by traditional
measures such as precision and recall, and users’
effectiveness and satisfaction of the results. The
tasks involve finding images for recall-based
tasks. It was concluded that no direct relationship
between system effectiveness and users’
performance could be proven (as shown by
previous research). People learn to adapt to a
system regardless of its effectiveness. This study
recommends that a combination of attributes
(e.g. system effectiveness, user performance and
satisfaction) is a more effective way to evaluate
interactive retrieval systems. Results of this
study also reveal that users are more concerned
with accuracy than coverage of the search
results
