Adaptive Browsing for Information Discovery in an Iconographic Context

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to present a set of complementary tools for achieving elaborated information discovering tasks in information environments which are mainly characterized by a strong iconographic content. The main tool presented in this paper is the MicroNOMAD Discovering Tool. Its most important characteristic is both to provide user with emergent and easy to use analyses of an iconographic database content and with overall querying and browsing guidelines through the use of an advanced topographic interface model. Conversely to a lot of other more classical models, the MicroNOMAD core model also allows the user to exploit dynamic exchanges between multiple viewpoints (i.e classifications) on the database. The paper describes a first experimentation of the MICRONOMAD tool, which have been achieved on the iconographic database associated to the BIBAN "Art Nouveau" server. The paper also presents a critical view of the tool regarding to more elementary browsing and discovering..