"What's this?": Understanding User Interaction Behaviour with Multimodal Input Information Retrieval System

Human communication relies on integrated multimodal channels to facilitate rich information exchange. Building on this foundation, researchers have long speculated about the potential benefits of incorporating multimodal input channels into conventional information retrieval (IR) systems to support users’ complex daily IR tasks more effectively. However, the true benefits of such integration remain uncertain. This paper presents a series of exploratory pilot tests comparing Multimodal Input IR (MIIR) with Unimodal Input IR (UIIR) across various IR scenarios, concluding that MIIR offers distinct advantages over UIIR in terms of user experiences. Our preliminary results suggest that MIIR could reduce the cognitive load associated with IR query formulation by allowing users to formulate different query-component in a unified manner across different input modalities, particularly when conducting complex exploratory search tasks in unfamiliar, in-situ contexts. The discussions stemming from this finding draw scholarly attention and suggest new angles for designing and developing MIIR systems.