Abstract Since the focus of information object in information organization and retrieval is changing from the whole document to the within-document information unit, it is necessary to study the correlation between the user’s need and information unit. Based on situational, cognitive, and granular attributes of genre, this paper explores the effects of information task, multi-genre functional unit and their interaction on perceived usefulness within the framework of interactive retrieval. We conducted two rounds of surveys with participants recruited by stratified sampling from the field of library and information science. The results show that perceived usefulness depends on the information task and functional unit, and their interaction effect; the frequency of online academic document usage can also affect perceived usefulness by each task. Based on the association between information task and multi-genre functional unit, this paper deepens our understanding of the situational and cognitive criteria in relevance judgment and the underlying mechanisms of task and genre relationship. Thus, this study will help improve the efficiency and effectiveness of fine-grained information retrieval and aggregation of online academic resources.
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