Subsequent searches

A sample of 1,740 users 7-8/6/2020 who queried at least 3 times from Elasticsearch data to validate the hypothesis that users change spelling in subsequent searches. Duplicate queries arising from paging through results were removed before analysis. The cleansed dataset contained 9,994 unique queries.

Analysis was done manually to differentiate between queries with added spaces and actual spelling changes. Capitalisation was counted as a spelling change.

194 users were found to have changed the spelling of queries, representing 9% of the sample. In some cases, spelling changing more than once during a session. 9% is sufficiently large to conclude that spelling represents a barrier to effective search.