Visualization of database structures for information retrieval

This paper describes the Book House system, which is designed to support children's information retrieval in libraries as part of their education. It is a shareware program available on CD‐ROM or floppy disks, and comprises functionality for database searching as well as for classifying and storing book information in the database. The system concept is based on an understanding of children's domain structures and their capabilities for categorization of information needs in connection with their activities in schools, in school libraries or in public libraries. These structures are visualized in the interface by using metaphors and multimedia technology. Through the use of text, images and animation, the Book House encourages children ‐ even at a very early age ‐ to learn by doing in an enjoyable way, which plays on their previous experiences with computer games. Both words and pictures can be used for searching; this makes the system suitable for all age groups. Even children who have not yet learned to read properly can, by selecting pictures, search for and find those books they would like to have read aloud. Thus, at the very beginning of their school life, they can learn to search for books on their own. For the library community, such a system will provide an extended service which will increase the number of children's own searches and also improve the relevance, quality and utilization of the book collections in the libraries. A market research report on the need for an annual indexing service for books in the Book House format is in preparation by the Danish Library Centre A/S

Web Portal Design Guidelines as Identified by Children through the Processes of Design and Evaluation

The Web is an important source of information for school projects, but young users do not always find it easy to locate relevant material. A critical factor in success is the portal through which they search or browse web content. Traditionally web portals have been designed by adults with young users in mind, but there is very little evidence that the latter make use of them. In this paper design guidelines are elaborated for such portals that are based upon focus group and operational evaluations by elementary school students of two prototype web portals designed by two intergenerational teams, each comprising elementary school students and adult designers. The evaluations offer strong support for involving children throughout the design process for portals that both in presentation and functionality reflect the cognitive and affective needs of young users rather than adults

Usability of Musical Digital Libraries: a Multimodal Analysis.

There has been substantial research on technical aspects of musical digital libraries, but comparatively little on usability aspects. We have evaluated four web-accessible music libraries, focusing particularly on features that are particular to music libraries, such as music retrieval mechanisms. Although the original focus of the work was on how modalities are combined within the interactions with such libraries, that was not where the main difficulties were found. Libraries were generally well designed for use of different modalities. The main challenges identified relate to the details of melody matching and to simplifying the choices of file format. These issues are discussed in detail. 1

A Nine Month Report on Progress Towards a Framework for Evaluating Advanced Search Interfaces considering Information Retrieval and Human Computer Interaction

This is a nine month progress report detailing my research into supporting users in their search for information, where the questions, results or even thei

Bubble World - A Novel Visual Information Retrieval Technique

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

Division of labour and sharing of knowledge for synchronous collaborative information retrieval

Synchronous collaborative information retrieval (SCIR) is concerned with supporting two or more users who search together at the same time in order to satisfy a shared information need. SCIR systems represent a paradigmatic shift in the way we view information retrieval, moving from an individual to a group process and as such the development of novel IR techniques is needed to support this. In this article we present what we believe are two key concepts for the development of effective SCIR namely division of labour (DoL) and sharing of knowledge (SoK). Together these concepts enable coordinated SCIR such that redundancy across group members is reduced whilst enabling each group member to benefit from the discoveries of their collaborators. In this article we outline techniques from state-of-the-art SCIR systems which support these two concepts, primarily through the provision of awareness widgets. We then outline some of our own work into system-mediated techniques for division of labour and sharing of knowledge in SCIR. Finally we conclude with a discussion on some possible future trends for these two coordination techniques

From Keyword Search to Exploration: How Result Visualization Aids Discovery on the Web

A key to the Web's success is the power of search. The elegant way in which search results are returned is usually remarkably effective. However, for exploratory search in which users need to learn, discover, and understand novel or complex topics, there is substantial room for improvement. Human computer interaction researchers and web browser designers have developed novel strategies to improve Web search by enabling users to conveniently visualize, manipulate, and organize their Web search results. This monograph offers fresh ways to think about search-related cognitive processes and describes innovative design approaches to browsers and related tools. For instance, while key word search presents users with results for specific information (e.g., what is the capitol of Peru), other methods may let users see and explore the contexts of their requests for information (related or previous work, conflicting information), or the properties that associate groups of information assets (group legal decisions by lead attorney). We also consider the both traditional and novel ways in which these strategies have been evaluated. From our review of cognitive processes, browser design, and evaluations, we reflect on the future opportunities and new paradigms for exploring and interacting with Web search results