As mentioned earlier, this study examined whether the social web, such as Social Search Engine Aardvark, enhances user effectiveness, efficiency, satisfaction, and emotional state in terms of information retrieval.
One of the main findings of this study suggested that the type of queries seem to matter! Initially, it was planned to have three different difficulty levels of the search queries, such as easy, medium, and hard questions.
However, after speaking with one of the main influencers in this field, Damon Horowitz, some valuable feedback came to attention. One of the suggestions was to, instead of difficulty levels, have various dimensions to the query classifications instead.
As a result, we included these three types of search query levels instead:
Objective, Subjective, and Combination queries.
It turned out that there were statistical significant relationships between the type of search queries and the type of search engines in terms of user efficiency, effectiveness, satisfaction, and emotion.
Here is how we came to define these dimensions…
-Objective Queries:
These were questions where the answers were purely objective. For example, if we were to ask “What is the train schedule from A to B?”, the answer would be objective. In other words, the answer would not be subjective to someone’s judgment and/or opinions but would purely be about an exchange of information.
-Subjective Queries:
These were purely subjective questions where the answer could vary from person to person. For example, if we were to ask: “Which is the best and the most recommended way to get from A to B?”, the answer would be subjective the opinion, likes, and dislikes of the answerer.
-Combination Queries:
These types of questions were neither entirely objective nor subjective. For example, if we asked “What is the fastest way to get from A to B by train or any other means?”, the answer would have to include both objective and subjective information. The objective part would be an objective component of the answer, such as the time of the train, and the subjective component of the answer, such as the answerer’s preference of getting from A to B.
These were questions where the answers were purely objective. For example, if we were to ask “What is the train schedule from A to B?”, the answer would be objective. In other words, the answer would not be subjective to someone’s judgment and/or opinions but would purely be about an exchange of information.
-Subjective Queries:
These were purely subjective questions where the answer could vary from person to person. For example, if we were to ask: “Which is the best and the most recommended way to get from A to B?”, the answer would be subjective the opinion, likes, and dislikes of the answerer.
-Combination Queries:
These types of questions were neither entirely objective nor subjective. For example, if we asked “What is the fastest way to get from A to B by train or any other means?”, the answer would have to include both objective and subjective information. The objective part would be an objective component of the answer, such as the time of the train, and the subjective component of the answer, such as the answerer’s preference of getting from A to B.
Here are some of the sample questions:
Objective Questions:
-Find the train schedule and the pricing for SJ to Oakland (or any other city/location)
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Nilo Sarraf 
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