Thursday, July 19, 2007

Online productivity calculator: More visual and accurate results.

Last month we introduced the beta version of our online web search productivity calculator. We now have an updated beta version on the website. The most visible change is the productivity graph. Now you will not only see the time and money expended data based on your request, but also see how the productivity changes over the course of time. The less visible change is in the algorithm used in the calculator. Now it more accurately estimates the productivity of the manual approach. In our recent post Automated vs Manual. How much faster?, where we explained the mathematical computations used in our calculator, we introduced a fatigue coefficient that denotes how much slower a human searcher will process each successive page of search results. This coefficient takes into account the influence of fatigue and the likelihood that the searcher will get sidetracked or be disturbed in the middle of the task. In our productivity calculator, this coefficient is 3%. However, the original formula didn't reflect the fact that a searcher typically takes short breaks and goes to lunch. Let's assume that our fatigue coefficient covers the time of those breaks (it just distributes them evenly throughout the work time). But another aspect of "human nature" is, after getting some rest, we are usually fresh and full of energy. And our productivity is as high as in the beginning of the work day. The new algorithm takes into account the effect that these breaks have on an individual’s work output. When the time spans between successive pages of search results reach 10 minutes, the calculator assumes that the searcher has had some rest and her productivity is high again. You can see this effect on the graph if you enter, for example, 2000 search results and 10 results per page. Now test our online calculator and let us know what you think about it. We are also interested in real life stories about web search productivity. Did you try to manually compile large lists of search results? Or did you use FirstStop WebSearch Business Edition withmaximum "results per search engine/search" settings? How did your productivity compare with the results of our productivity calculator? You can either comment in this blog post or use a contact form on the online productivity calculator web page.

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