IR UI H. Lally Singh 3/27/2003

Papers Discussed 1. A Scrollbar-based Visualization for Document Navigation, Donald Byrd 2. Improving User Performance on Boolean Queries, John F. Pane, Brad A. Myers Get both from “ACM Article Search” link in lib.vt.edu’s “article search” section.

1. Scrollbar Visualization Displays search terms’ locations in text in the scrollbar. Small colored dots represent each terms’ incidences in text. Different color for each term’s dots.

1. Scrollbar Visualization Example Search Terms Incidences of Terms in Text

2. Improving Boolean Queries Use a graphical notation to describe boolean queries A set of boxes, each with a clause. Conjunction represented with rows of boxes. Disjunction represented by horizontally adjacent boxes. Tests show ~10% improvement in user ability to generate queries this way versus standard text. potato not oranges gluepaste manufacturing potato and (not oranges) and (glue or paste) and manufacturing

Conclusions Both help IR systems suck less Both help user get out of sucky IR system faster Both require client-side intelligence –Could be implemented for the web via Flash –Probably won’t see it in Google