On the memorability of icons in an information retrieval task

Information retrieval involves the balance of two mnemonic processes: recognition of items presented to the user, and recall of where wanted documents might be. Iconic methods of human-computer interaction are seen to assist the recognition processes by virtue of the enrichment of cues provided. However, the principle of cue enrichment could apply equally to the process of recall, which is arguably a process more needing of support. This paper reports two exploratory experiments using icons to support the recall process in information retrieval. The results indicate no exceptional levels of recall. However, some aspects of users' performance suggest icons used in this way have some interesting and exploitable mnemonic properties. In particular, they may be useful in enhancing and supporting the search process by rapidly limiting the number of documents through which a user might be asked to search.