What does time constraint mean to information searchers?

In this paper, we explore the relationship between time constraints and users' assessment of their search. A user experiment was conducted. Participants were asked to search under two conditions: with time constraint (TC) and with no time constraint (NTC). The results showed that time constraint did not significantly influence participants' assessment of task difficulty, but significantly influenced users' search confidence and their evaluation of search performance. Particularly, participants were less confident and considered their search performance worse in TC than in NTC conditions. We also found users acquired more new knowledge and had more positive affective states after searching in NTC than in TC conditions. Interestingly, we found time constraints also affect participants' anticipation of time needed to complete the task; participants thought they would need significantly less time to complete the search task when they were given time constraints than without time constraints. These preliminary results suggested that time constraints had remarkable influence upon users' perception of search tasks and their search experience.