1. 1 Discussion Class 12 User Interfaces and Visualization

2. 2 Course Administration Assignment 4: Late Submission Permitted until Sunday See the Web site for details. No Lecture on November 30 There will be no lecture on November 30. Lectures 26 and 27 will be combined into a single lecture on November 28, Classification 1 & 2. The full slides for Lectures 26 and 27 are posted on the Web site. The final examination will not include any material that has not been covered in class.

3. 3 Course Administration Final Examination The final examination is on Friday, December 15, between 9:00 and 10:30, in Phillips 101. Format and style of questions will be similar to the mid- term. A make-up examination may be available on another date, which has not yet been chosen. If you would like to take the make-up examination, send an email message to Sarah Birns (sbirns@cs.cornell.edu).

4. 4 Discussion Classes Format: Question Ask a member of the class to answer. Provide opportunity for others to comment. When answering: Stand up. Give your name. Make sure that the TA hears it. Speak clearly so that all the class can hear. Suggestions: Do not be shy at presenting partial answers. Differing viewpoints are welcome.

5. 5 Question 1: The Standard Model of Information Retrieval (a)The author has several criticisms of the standard model. What are they? (b)Do these criticisms apply to the Search/Browse model used throughout this course?

6. 6 Question 2: The Berry Picking Model of Information Seeking The berry picking model is an alternative model of information seeking. What is it? How do browsing, querying, navigating, and scanning fit into this model? What information structures do they apply to?

7. 7 Question 3: Starting Points (a)What is the starting point problem? (b)The author describes the following techniques for providing overviews. Explain each of them and its effectiveness. directory or category hierarchies automatically derived clustering co-citation overviews

8. 8 Question 4: Scatter/Gather What is the "Scatter/Gather browsing paradigm"? How might Scatter/Gather be combined with searching? What are the relative benefit of the two approaches and how would they be measured? How might graphical or visualization techniques be combined with Scatter/Gather?

9. 9 Question 5: Graphical Overviews The author is an expert in information visualization, yet she has some reservations about visualization as a tool for exploring large collections of information. (a) Describe some of the strengths of visualization. (b) Describe some of the problems. How much do the problems appear to be fundamental and how much are they short term difficulties with current systems?

10. 10 Question 6: Examples, etc. Several retrieval methods use examples or reformulation as a user interface. What are the advantages and disadvantages of this approach? Explain the advantages and disadvantages of wizards as as a user interface paradigm. Explain the advantages and disadvantages of guided tours as a user interface paradigm.

11. 11 Question 7: Future Directions In the final section, the author expresses her ideas about the future directions of research into user interfaces and visualization. (a) What trends does she see? (b) The chapter was published in 1999. How do you think that these ideas might be different if the chapter were written today?

12. 12 Search / Scan / Browse model Search index Return hits Browse content Return objects Scan results