MultiBeeBrowse – Accessible Browsing on Unstructured Metadata

Abstract

Abstract. Growing abundance of information on the Internet, especially the Next Generation Internet, poses even more challenges on more efficient information management; hence it has brought attention of the researchers to the faceted navigation. Existing solutions, however, do not address the majority of users, who are still inexperienced in using the faceted navigation solutions or who do not understand underlying concepts of the Semantic Web technologies, or both. The query refinement process, while using the faceted navigation interface, is more complex than, e.g., refining a simple keyword-based query. In this article we present MultiBeeBrowse (MBB), an accessible faceted navigation solution that solves aforementioned problems in the browsing environment. We present how to improve users' access to their history of refinements; we discuss how users can share their browsing experience. And last bust not least, we present an adaptable user interface, which aims to decrease information overload.

Rendering navigation and information space with honeycomb™

“…HexBrowser, the prototype of the HC TM paradigm, has been successfully deployed in the MultiBeeBrowse component [3]. MultiBeeBrowse is a faceted navigation solution that allows users to browse collaboratively.…”

“…In order to navigate through it and discover interesting concepts, solutions like faceted navigation [7] on unstructured metadata [6] are gaining more interest. While building MultiBeeBrowse [3], our collaborative browsing solution, we had to resolve certain usability issues, related to more advanced features of the system. There are two features of MultiBeeBrowse (MBB) that were motivation to work on the HoneyComb TM paradigm: (1) MBB allows users to keep a multilevel history of actions, i.e., query refinements.…”

Evaluation of Semantic and Social Technologies for Digital Libraries

“…Social networking services can improve the overall usability of the information discovery and sharing; users become active producers of the metadata, hence a digital library can provide more focused and more accurate results through, e.g., recommendations techniques. So far the evaluation studies were conducted to show the value added of separate social and semantic components [6,9,10]. We believe that it is important to evaluate these solutions setup together for user experience in information discovery.…”

“…TagsTreeMaps (TTM) [9] support filtering of the information space with a hierarchical tag cloud rendered using treemaps layout algorithm. MultiBeeBrowse (MBB) delivers faceted navigation using adaptive hypermedia techniques for exploring relations between information items [6]. Exhibit allows to filter information space, and render it with as a timeline or with the Google Maps [3] Social features: Bookmarks Sharing allows users to maintain and share securely private bookshelf with hierarchical classification of bookmarks folders [4].…”

“…Exhibit allows to filter information space, and render it with as a timeline or with the Google Maps [3] Social features: Bookmarks Sharing allows users to maintain and share securely private bookshelf with hierarchical classification of bookmarks folders [4]. Collaborative Browsing facilitates collaborative sharing and reusing MBB queries [6]. Blogging component allows users to tag and to leave comments to resources [7].…”