Author's Abstract
A visual information retrieval environment provides visualization features that help users manage the large result sets that are typical in many information retrieval environments. In many of these visual interfaces the spatial layout of document surrogates is used to communicate information about document to query interrelationships. In these systems it is difficult to determine if the spatial layout is responsible for system effectiveness differences or if other system features are involved. In this study we examine the effectiveness of a two-dimensional display format compared to a more standard (one-dimensional) sorted result list. The Visual Information Browsing Environment (VIBE) (Olsen et al., 1993; Korfhage, 1997) was modified to produce two systems that varied only on result display dimensionality. The effectiveness of a display is determined by the degree to which the visual representation is consistent with the cognitive abilities of the users of a system. For this reason we also investigated the interaction of the verbal and spatial abilities of users, as measured by cognitive factors batteries, with the dimensionality of the result display. Subjects took three Factor-Referenced Cognitive Tests (Ekstrom, French, and Harman, 1976): Factor P: Perceptual Speed (Number Comparison Test --P2 Identical Pictures Test--P-3); Factor VZ: Visualization (Paper Folding Test--VZ-2) the Verbal Fluency (Controlled Associations, test FA-1). Subjects were broken into two groups, one for each display type. They used the systems to search for full-text documents that described species of plants that matched other descriptions of the same species. Recall effort and mean task completion time measured system effectiveness. Automated system monitoring provided detailed information about the search behavior of individual subjects.
Additional Comments
Prof. Bryan Heidorn of GSLIS is creating this system with a real-life application in mind. The system will be used by Illinois biology teachers and students to identify plants, trees and butterflies in the state of Illinois for a yearly survey sponsored by the state. Current goals and projects for the Web-VIBE system are to add more information and functionality by integrating several databases. Heidorn's group is writing data-mining parsers to take advantage of the database information, and adding XML markup to the field to enable more specific searching. The group is adding a few features at a time and then user-testing them for usability and functionality. When the system is not being tested, it is available for demonstrations. This system has potential for demonstrations and user-testing, and the emphasis that the designers have put on user-testing has paid off in the usability and practicality of the system.
Demo of "Flora of North America through WebVIBE interface." is available through Bryan Heidorn's homepage.
http://alexia.lis.uiuc.edu/~heidorn/
Author's Abstract
Most approaches to displaying search results create a list of results with some fixed order. Missing is the ability to explore common topics within the set of search results. This paper examines techniques to solve this problem and
introduces SQWID, a system that uses many of these techniques. The SQWID (Search Query Weighted Information Display) system provides an interactive visualization of the search results, allowing users to see the relevance of the results to different key terms.
Additional Comments
SQWID generates a visualization of a set of Web query search results, and identifies some related terms to help understand the relationships between the retrieved set. The application to Web searching is particularly interesting since searches are not limited to particular subject fields, thus making the system useful to an unlimited audience. SQWID acknowledges visualization work for both hypertext systems and query results. The descriptions and comparisons to other systems are insightful, although the links to other systems have not been maintained. The available demo is only partially functional, but still gives a good portrayal of the interactive SQWID system.
Mark A. Foltz
Information Architecture project at the MIT Artificial Intelligence Laboratory
An Information Space Design Rationale
http://www.infoarch.ai.mit.edu/jair/jair-rationale.html
Author's Abstract
The JAIR Information Space is an information access environment for the Journal of Artificial Intelligence Research. Such an environment is designed to assist the user in obtaining information which fulfills an information need [1]. In this case, the space assists the user in determining if articles in JAIR can fulfill an underlying information need, and if so, provides a means for downloading and displaying them.
The design of any information access environment must take into account a typical user's knowledge of the domain, his familiarity with search tools and search strategies, and the nature of the information accessible from the environment [2]. For the JAIR information space the typical user is assumed to be familiar with main topics of research within the field of AI and the terminology used to describe them. Also assumed is familiarity with navigating hypertext, using common user interface widgets (buttons, scrollbars), direct-manipulation interfaces, and full-text search interfaces.
Instructions and Demo available at:
http://www.infoarch.ai.mit.edu/jair/jair-space.html
Additional Comments
While this project is applied to a specific field and application, this information visualization of the document space is a valuable demonstration for understanding the usability of this system and the possibilities for graphical representations.
Visual Interactions with Web Database Content
Xia Lin, Lewis Hassell, Il-Yeol Song, College of Information Science and Technology, Drexel University
Tamas E. Doszkocs, National Library of Medicine
http://research.cis.drexel.edu/mesh/meshPaper1.html
Author's Abstract
Visual MeSH is a graphical interface developed to interact with real world databases such as the National Library of Medicine's MetaThesaurus and MEDLINE. Visual MeSH makes it easy for the user to browse complex relationships through visual representation of thesaurus structures. It helps the user to select controlled vocabulary terms for online searching in the click-and-choose environment.
Additional Comments
Visual MeSH provides several different ways to access the thesaurus information graphically in order to find controlled vocabulary search terms and construct more complicated search queries. MeSH Concepts are available in a tree view, a neighbor view, and a map view. At any time, the user can double-click on a term to select it and add it to the query. The number of results available for a given query is updated with each change, so the user can add or remove terms until they reach a reasonable range, and then view the search results. This system works in MEDLINE because of the underlying MeSH thesaurus, but perhaps it could be modified for other databases. The graphical construction of queries in the point-and-click web-environment seems like a good idea. No users tests were mentioned in the article, so no indication is given as to whether the system is useful to real users, however, the VisualMeSH system can be accessed at
http://research.cis.drexel.edu/mesh/index.html This is a fully functional system available over the Web, and would work very well for user-testing.
http://www.comp.lancs.ac.uk/computing/research/cseg/projects/ariadne/
Author's Abstract
The use of library resources is stereotyped as a solitary activity, with hardly any mention in the library science and information retrieval literature on the social aspects of information systems. However, it is clear that end-users engage in significant collaboration; both with co-searchers, library staff and other interested parties. The skill of locating information is one that a growing number of people require but our knowledge of how to teach it remains rudimentary. In particular database systems fail to support both the learning of skills and the sharing of information.
Our research concentrates on two novel areas of computer based support for information retrieval:
ARIADNE Search Process Visualization Demonstration is available at http://www.comp.lancs.ac.uk/computing/research/cseg/projects/ariadne/demo.html
Additional Comments
The ARIADNE project is extensively documented and most publications are available through the project website. Visualization of the search process is an innovative application of graphical information visualization to information retrieval.
Author's Abstract
CLUSTIFIER solves the problem of organizing a collection of documents into groups having similar topics. CLUSTIFIER works in both supervised and fully automatic modes. In supervised mode, a person defines the topics by manually grouping ten percent of the documents and CLUSTIFIER does the rest. In automatic mode, CLUSTIFIER automatically discovers a set of topics around which to group. CLUSTIFIER is fast enough to organize dynamically generated collections, and is designed to be integrated into products handling documents of all types.
Clustering text - you can experiment with an interactive demonstration of a Post-Query clustering tool. You type in a search query and then your "hits" will be clustered automatically by topic. Clustifier will divide a list of hundreds of documents into a small number of natural groups. You browse the groups.
http://ai.iit.nrc.ca/Clustifier/
Additional Comments
While the Clustifier is not a graphical system, it does demonstrate the necessity of more functionality than a simple ranked list, and like Hearst's Scatter/Gather and other clustering systems, it demonstrates the usefulness of organizing large sets of results according to similar topics.