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

Does Design Contribute to Ease of Use: An Exploratory Study of Web Facets in The Result Pages of Two Search Engines

An exploratory study was conduced to examine the design aspects of Web facets found in the search result pages of two search engines: Exalead and Excite. The goal of the study was to determine if Web facet design could contribute to perceived ease of use. This study builds upon findings from an earlier study (Milonas, 2010) in which the results indicated that users perceived the Web facets evident in the search result pages of the Exalead search engine easier to use than those found in Excite. The researcher surmised that the design of these Web facets might have contributed to the difference in perceived ease of use. The relationship between design and user perception in determining the ease of use of Web facets within these two search engines is explored. In the first component of the study, an expert inspection of the various design aspects of the search result pages of Exalead and Excite was conducted.  In the second part of the study, five participants conducted an experiment using the Web facets found in the search result pages of the two search engines. Findings of both the expert inspection and the usability evaluation showed that there does not seem to be a significant difference in the design of Web facets within the two search engines. The findings seem to indicate that design of Web facets is not a contributory factor in terms of Web facet ease of use

Supporting Exploratory Web Search With Meaningful and Stable Categorized Overviews

This dissertation investigates the use of categorized overviews of web search results, based on meaningful and stable categories, to support exploratory search. When searching in digital libraries and on the Web, users are challenged by the lack of effective overviews. Adding categorized overviews to search results can provide substantial benefits when searchers need to explore, understand, and assess their results. When information needs are evolving or imprecise, categorized overviews can stimulate relevant ideas, provoke illuminating questions, and guide searchers to useful information they might not otherwise find. When searchers need to gather information from multiple perspectives or sources, categorized overviews can make those aspects visible for interactive filtering and exploration. However, they add visual complexity to the interface and increase the number of tactical decisions to be made while examining search results. Two formative studies (N=18 and N=12) investigated how searchers use categorized overviews in the domain of U.S. government web search. A third study (N=24) evaluated categorized overviews of general web search results based on thematic, geographic, and government categories. Participants conducted four exploratory searches during a two hour session to generate ideas for newspaper articles about specified topics. Results confirmed positive findings from the formative studies, showing that subjects explored deeper while feeling more organized and satisfied, but did not find objective differences in the outcomes of the search task. Results indicated that searchers use categorized overviews based on thematic, geographic, and organizational categories to guide the next steps in their searches. This dissertation identifies lightweight search actions and tactics made possible by adding a categorized overview to a list of web search results. It describes a design space for categorized overviews of search results, and presents a novel application of the brushing and linking technique to enrich search result interfaces with lightweight interactions. It proposes a set of principles, refined by the studies, for the design of exploratory search interfaces, including "Organize overviews around meaningful categories," "Clarify and visualize category structure," and "Tightly couple category labels to search result list." These contributions will be useful to web search researchers and designers, information architects and web developers

Action Recognition in Videos: from Motion Capture Labs to the Web

This paper presents a survey of human action recognition approaches based on visual data recorded from a single video camera. We propose an organizing framework which puts in evidence the evolution of the area, with techniques moving from heavily constrained motion capture scenarios towards more challenging, realistic, "in the wild" videos. The proposed organization is based on the representation used as input for the recognition task, emphasizing the hypothesis assumed and thus, the constraints imposed on the type of video that each technique is able to address. Expliciting the hypothesis and constraints makes the framework particularly useful to select a method, given an application. Another advantage of the proposed organization is that it allows categorizing newest approaches seamlessly with traditional ones, while providing an insightful perspective of the evolution of the action recognition task up to now. That perspective is the basis for the discussion in the end of the paper, where we also present the main open issues in the area.Comment: Preprint submitted to CVIU, survey paper, 46 pages, 2 figures, 4 table

Wittgenstein and web facets

The World Wide Web has grown exponentially in the last few years. The popularity of Web search engines has also grown in a similar manner. The task of a Web search engine is to provide the Web searcher with accurate and targeted information from the plethora of information available on the Web. This is a daunting task that requires the careful usage of language to ensure accuracy. As a result, the importance of the usage and meaning of language in the Web domain has become the focus of recent research. In this paper, the author will explore Wittgenstein’s later philosophy of language as it applies to the language used in the search result pages of a Web search engine in an effort to broaden the understanding of language usage within this domain

Computational Thinking across the Curriculum: A Conceptual Framework

We describe a framework for implementing computational thinking in a broad variety of general education courses. The framework is designed to be used by faculty without formal training in information technology in order to understand and integrate computational thinking into their own general education courses. The framework includes examples of computational thinking in a variety of general education courses, as well as sample in-class activities, assignments, and other assessments for the courses. The examples in the different courses are related and differentiated using categories taken from Peter Denning’s Great Principles of Computing, so that similar types of computational thinking appearing in different contexts are brought together. This aids understanding of the computational thinking found in the courses and provides a template for future work on new course materials