Hakutuloslaatu

Hakutuloslaatu refers to the quality of search results as perceived and measured within information retrieval systems. It encompasses how relevant the results are to a user's query, how useful the ranking is, and how well the returned set represents the information the user seeks. In addition to relevance, hakutuloslaatu can include factors such as completeness, diversity, timeliness, credibility of sources, and the clarity of result presentation.

The concept is used across domains where search interfaces are central, including library catalogs, enterprise search, and web search. In Finnish information practice, hakutuloslaatu is a key criterion for evaluating and comparing search systems, guiding configuration choices, interface design, and algorithmic improvements to better meet user needs.

Components of hakutuloslaatu typically include: relevance of individual results to the query; the quality and usefulness of the ranking order; coverage or recall of the most pertinent documents; freshness or timeliness of content; reliability and credibility of sources; diversity of results to cover different plausible intents; and the usability of result presentation, including snippets, labels, and filtering options. User-centric aspects such as satisfaction and perceived usefulness are increasingly considered part of hakutuloslaatu.

Evaluation of hakutuloslaatu relies on both objective metrics and user feedback. Common measures include precision, recall, F-measure, and ranking-oriented metrics like discounted cumulative gain (DCG) or normalized DCG (nDCG), as well as mean reciprocal rank (MRR). Behavioral signals (click-through rates, dwell time) and user surveys supplement laboratory or field testing to capture real-world usefulness.

See also: Information retrieval, search quality, relevance, user experience.