63,079 research outputs found
Supporting exploratory browsing with visualization of social interaction history
This thesis is concerned with the design, development, and evaluation of information visualization tools for supporting exploratory browsing. Information retrieval (IR) systems currently do not support browsing well. Responding to user queries, IR systems typically compute relevance scores of documents and then present the document surrogates to users in order of relevance. Other systems such as email clients and discussion forums simply arrange messages in reverse chronological order. Using these systems, people cannot gain an overview of a collection easily, nor do they receive adequate support for finding potentially useful items in the collection.
This thesis explores the feasibility of using social interaction history to improve exploratory browsing. Social interaction history refers to traces of interaction among users in an information space, such as discussions that happen in the blogosphere or online newspapers through the commenting facility. The basic hypothesis of this work is that social interaction history can serve as a good indicator of the potential value of information items. Therefore, visualization of social interaction history would offer navigational cues for finding potentially valuable information items in a collection.
To test this basic hypothesis, I conducted three studies. First, I ran statistical analysis of a social media data set. The results showed that there were positive relationships between traces of social interaction and the degree of interestingness of web articles. Second, I conducted a feasibility study to collect initial feedback about the potential of social interaction history to support information exploration. Comments from the participants were in line with the research hypothesis. Finally, I conducted a summative evaluation to measure how well visualization of social interaction history can improve exploratory browsing. The results showed that visualization of social interaction history was able to help users find interesting articles, to reduce wasted effort, and to increase user satisfaction with the visualization tool
Video browsing interfaces and applications: a review
We present a comprehensive review of the state of the art in video browsing and retrieval systems, with special emphasis on interfaces and applications. There has been a significant increase in activity (e.g., storage, retrieval, and sharing) employing video data in the past decade, both for personal and professional use. The ever-growing amount of video content available for human consumption and the inherent characteristics of video dataâwhich, if presented in its raw format, is rather unwieldy and costlyâhave become driving forces for the development of more effective solutions to present video contents and allow rich user interaction. As a result, there are many contemporary research efforts toward developing better video browsing solutions, which we summarize. We review more than 40 different video browsing and retrieval interfaces and classify them into three groups: applications that use video-player-like interaction, video retrieval applications, and browsing solutions based on video surrogates. For each category, we present a summary of existing work, highlight the technical aspects of each solution, and compare them against each other
Info Navigator: A visualization tool for document searching and browsing
In this paper we investigate the retrieval performance of monophonic and polyphonic queries made on a polyphonic music database. We extend the n-gram approach for full-music indexing of monophonic music data to polyphonic music using both rhythm and pitch information. We define an experimental framework for a comparative and fault-tolerance study of various n-gramming strategies and encoding levels. For monophonic queries, we focus in particular on query-by-humming systems, and for polyphonic queries on query-by-example. Error models addressed in several studies are surveyed for the fault-tolerance study. Our experiments show that different n-gramming strategies and encoding precision differ widely in their effectiveness. We present the results of our study on a collection of 6366 polyphonic MIDI-encoded music pieces
NITELIGHT: A Graphical Tool for Semantic Query Construction
Query formulation is a key aspect of information retrieval, contributing to both the efficiency and usability of many semantic applications. A number of query languages, such as SPARQL, have been developed for the Semantic Web; however, there are, as yet, few tools to support end users with respect to the creation and editing of semantic queries. In this paper we introduce a graphical tool for semantic query construction (NITELIGHT) that is based on the SPARQL query language specification. The tool supports end users by providing a set of graphical notations that represent semantic query language constructs. This language provides a visual query language counterpart to SPARQL that we call vSPARQL. NITELIGHT also provides an interactive graphical editing environment that combines ontology navigation capabilities with graphical query visualization techniques. This paper describes the functionality and user interaction features of the NITELIGHT tool based on our work to date. We also present details of the vSPARQL constructs used to support the graphical representation of SPARQL queries
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 CDâROM 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 â even at a very early age â 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
Is Evaluating Visual Search Interfaces in Digital Libraries Still an Issue?
Although various visual interfaces for digital libraries have been developed
in prototypical systems, very few of these visual approaches have been
integrated into today's digital libraries. In this position paper we argue that
this is most likely due to the fact that the evaluation results of most visual
systems lack comparability. There is no fix standard on how to evaluate visual
interactive user interfaces. Therefore it is not possible to identify which
approach is more suitable for a certain context. We feel that the comparability
of evaluation results could be improved by building a common evaluation setup
consisting of a reference system, based on a standardized corpus with fixed
tasks and a panel for possible participants.Comment: 10 pages, 2 figures, LWA Workshop 201
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