Stranger Searching in a Strange Land: The Impact of Familiarity on Local Search.

Local search entails looking for places, such as restaurants or hotels, in a geographically-constrained region. Within local search, it has been observed that an individual's familiarity with their environment (i.e. how well they know the area in a query of the form \"{places} in {area}\") impacts which places they are most interested in visiting. Less well-understood though is how people's information preferences differ during 1) different phases of the search process and 2) based on their level of familiarity. Through a series of surveys in the domain of dining, we explore how familiarity moderates what level of information is useful to an individual about restaurant location when choosing a place to visit. We further examine how these preferences vary between regions and phases of local search (deciding on a restaurant or determining how to go). We contribute an understanding of people's information preferences during search, building on prior research of how offline context impacts online needs.