InfoCrystal: A visual tool for information retrieval

Spoerri, Anselm

doi:10.1109/visual.1993.398863

Cited by 87 publications

(92 citation statements)

References 34 publications

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“…Often, this will have the secondary effect of grouping documents that share this additional information. The additional information displayed highlights the relationship between the documents and the query terms [10,33]; predefined document attributes (e.g., size, date, source or popularity) [12,23]; or user-specified attributes (i.e., predefined topics) [17,24,29].…”

Section: Related Workmentioning

confidence: 99%

Grouper: a dynamic clustering interface to Web search results

1999

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Users of Web search engines are often forced to sift through the long ordered list of document "snippets" returned by the engines. The IR community has explored document clustering as an alternative method of organizing retrieval results, but clustering has yet to be deployed on most major search engines. The NorthernLight search engine organizes its output into "custom folders" based on pre-computed document labels, but does not reveal how the folders are generated or how well they correspond to users' interests.In this paper, we introduce Grouper -an interface to the results of the HuskySearch meta-search engine, which dynamically groups the search results into clusters labeled by phrases extracted from the snippets. In addition, we report on the first empirical comparison of user Web search behavior on a standard ranked-list presentation versus a clustered presentation. By analyzing HuskySearch logs, we are able to demonstrate substantial differences in the number of documents followed, and in the amount of time and effort expended by users accessing search results through these two interfaces.

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Section: Related Workmentioning

confidence: 99%

Grouper: a dynamic clustering interface to Web search results

1999

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“…In order to compare the other NLIs with a formal approach, but keeping in mind that casual end-users are better at understanding graphical query interfaces than formal query languages [23], we implemented Semantic Crystal. The name is an homage to Spoerri's InfoCrystal, a graphically-based query tool for Boolean and vector space information retrieval [23].…”

Section: Semantic Crystalmentioning

confidence: 99%

How Useful Are Natural Language Interfaces to the Semantic Web for Casual End-Users?

Kaufmann

Bernstein

2007

Lecture Notes in Computer Science

110

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Abstract. Natural language interfaces offer end-users a familiar and convenient option for querying ontology-based knowledge bases. Several studies have shown that they can achieve high retrieval performance as well as domain independence. This paper focuses on usability and investigates if NLIs are useful from an end-user's point of view. To that end, we introduce four interfaces each allowing a different query language and present a usability study benchmarking these interfaces. The results of the study reveal a clear preference for full sentences as query language and confirm that NLIs are useful for querying Semantic Web data.

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“…VisDB [22] sorts the documents based on their relevance with respect to the query and then maps the relevance factors to colors. Techniques such as VIBE[23], Lyberworld [24] and InfoCrystals [25] use a "query term hits between documents" approach [1]. This approach shows an overview or summary of the retrieved documents according to which subset of query terms they contain.…”

Section: Visual Interfaces For Information Retrieval and Browsingmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The InfoCrystal [25] interface, designed by Anselm Spoerri at MIT and shown in Figure 7, allows users to specify boolean queries graphically, to visualize boolean combinations of query terms, and to see the sizes of the document subsets which satisfy those term combinations. The graphical components of the system are iconic displays known as query spreadsheets, which function similarly to Venn diagrams: icons on the spreadsheet represent different boolean combinations of n query terms.…”

Section: Infocrystalmentioning

confidence: 99%

Bubble World--A Novel Visual Information Retrieval Technique

Berendonck¹

2002

PsycEXTRA Dataset

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With the tremendous growth of published electronic information sources in the last decade and the unprecedented reliance on this information to succeed in day-to-day operations, comes the expectation of finding the right information at the right time. Sentential interfaces are currently the only viable solution for searching through large infospheres of unstructured information, however, the simplistic nature of their interaction model and lack of cognitive amplification they can provide severely limit the performance of the interface. Visual information retrieval systems are emerging as possible candidate replacements for the more traditional interfaces, but many lack the cognitive framework to support the knowledge crystallization process found to be essential in information retrieval. This work introduces a novel visual information retrieval technique crafted from two distinct design genres: (1) the cognitive strategies of the human mind to solve problems and (2) observed interaction patterns with existing information retrieval systems. Based on the cognitive and interaction framework developed in this research, a functional prototype information retrieval system, called Bubble World, has been created to demonstrate that significant performance gains can be achieved using this technique when compared to more traditional text-based interfaces. Bubble World does this by successfully transforming the internal mental representation of the information retrieval problem to an efficient external view, and then through visual cues, provides cognitive amplification at key stages of the information retrieval process. Additionally, Bubble World provides the interaction model and the mechanisms to incorporate complex search schemas into the retrieval process either manually or automatically through the use of predefined ontological models. Subject Terms Visual Information Retrieval, Cognitive Propositions, Design Corollaries, Ontology Models Report Classification unclassified Classification of this page unclassified Classification of Abstract unclassified Limitation of Abstract UU Number of Pages 174AFIT/GCS/ENG/02M-09

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InfoCrystal: A visual tool for information retrieval

Cited by 87 publications

References 34 publications

Grouper: a dynamic clustering interface to Web search results

Grouper: a dynamic clustering interface to Web search results

How Useful Are Natural Language Interfaces to the Semantic Web for Casual End-Users?

Bubble World--A Novel Visual Information Retrieval Technique

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