purpose: this study aims to explore the relationships between different facets of work task and selection and query-related behavior.

design/methodology/approach: an experiment was conducted to explore the issue. the researcher recruited 24 participants and assigned six simulated work task situations to each of them. each experiment lasted around 2 hours and was recorded by the software tool morae.

findings: time (frequency) and time (length) are more closely related to user’s selection and query-related behavior compared to the facet ‘process’ of work task. knowledge level of work task topic, degree of work task difficulty, and subjective work task complexity are significantly correlated with selection and query-related behavior. work task difficulty and work task complexity are different concepts. subjective work task complexity, work task difficulty, and knowledge of work task topic are significantly correlated with user’s selection and query-related behavior.

research limitations/implications: the limitations of this study include a small sample size, limited work task situations, and possible spurious relationships. this study has implications in informing task-based information seeking/search/retrieval research and interactive information retrieval (iir) systems design.

originality/values: previous studies usually did not touch upon how different facets of work tasks affected interactive activities. some studies examining task complexity and information behavior were concerned with how work tasks affect users’ behavior at information-seeking level, rather than at information search level.  this study makes contribution to interactive information retrieval, task-based information search and retrieval, and personalization of ir.