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Visual Information Retrieval Interfaces
NSF IRI-9529072
Despite decades of exposure to Boolean queries many of the public
remain unsure of their semantics. Vector based retrieval, as presented
on the Web, is even more opaque, allowing users to search without
knowing how the terms they type in are combined or used. Visual
information retrieval interfaces (VIRIs) have been developed by
researchers as a more natural representation of multidimensional
queries. VIRIs had been believed to make the tasks of query
formulation and interpretation easier particularly for inexperienced
users. Research led to the completion of one advanced retrieval
visualization interface, GUIDO, extensive user studies with another,
VIBE and a sophisticated study of discrimination and reference point
placement. Morse and Lewis [66] subsequently demonstrated that two of
these information retrieval visualizations which had proven
ineffective in user testing could be easily understood and used by
naïve subjects when presented in simplified defeatured interfaces
which emphasized the underlying visual analogies. A series of
subsequent studies described systematically explored and tested the
usability of visual analogies commonly used in information retrieval.
This project helped support five dissertations and resulted in
publications appearing among other places in the Journal of American
Society for Information and Technology and the Journal of
Human-Computer Systems.
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