Chapter 15: Information Search & Visualization Team 3: Jacob Hicks, Victor Chen, Saba Alavi

Introduction Information exploration overload/anxiety? Object-actions Interface (OAI) model helps by: separating different task concepts separating high-level interface issues from low level interface issues N00bs in an information-exploration system… struggle to understand what they see whilst remembering their information needs might be distracted by learning complex query languages/elaborate shape- coding rules need direct-manipulation designs/simple visual-coding rules (low cognition) can request additional features by adjusting control panels Experienced users want more functionality and power: a wider range of search tools, lots of options

Introduction (cont’d) Task objects represented by interface objects in structured relational databases or text/media document libraries Structured relational databases made up of relations and a schema (model) to describe relations Relations have items (tuples/records), which consist of multiple atomic attributes, each of which have attribute values Textual document library comprised of collections and descriptive attributes (e.g. location, media type, curator, donor, etc.)

Introduction (cont’d) Multimedia document library same as textual document library, only instead of text, it’s media: images, sound, video, animations, etc. Task actions (i.e. fact finding) decomposed into browsing/searching, represented by interface actions (i.e. scrolling, zooming, joining, linking) Finding aids help users focus their info needs (i.e. table of contents, indices, abstracts, etc)

Database Query/Phrase Search SQL a widespread standard for searching in structured relational database systems Requires substantial time investment to learn Computer’s capacity for responding to natural language query often limited Tradeoff exists between ease of use and usefulness Empirical studies illustrate better performance and more satisfaction when users are able to view and control the search

Database Query/Phrase Search Improved designs & consistency across differing systems allows for faster performance, fewer mistakes, and more successful searches Recommends four phase framework: Formulation – expressing the search Initiation of the action – launching the search Review of results Refinement – formulating the next step

Multimedia Document Searches Current approaches to locating media rely on parallel databases and document searches Advocates for ambitions captioning and attribute recording Classification according to useful search categories useful, though costly and imperfect Graphical specification of query components: Photo search Map Search Design/diagram search Sound search Video Search Animation Search

Information Visualization Bandwidth of vision is high Overview first, zoom and filter, then details on demand. Data type by task

1-D Linear Text documents Source Code Bifocal Display Value Bars

2-D Map Maps Floorplans Newspaper layouts

3D World Real objects, models, ect. Must keep track of position orientation Occlusion

Temporal data Time lines 1D linear Start and finish time Events may overlap

Multidimesional data n-dimensional space Databases with n attributes Can be 2D or 3D Scattergrams

Tree data Hierarchies Can be shown as lines and nodes Tabbed text files Cones in 3D

Network data Networks Cannot be written as a tree Node-and-link Square matrix

Overview Task Movable field of view 3 to 30 zoom amount Fisheye

Zoom task View a specific area in detail Smooth zooming preserves orientation “A satisfying way to zoom in is to point to a location and to issue a zooming command”

Filter task Remove unwanted items Widgets to regulate process Dynamic control of items

Details-on-demand task Select item or group to get details Click on an item to get popup window

Relate task View relationships amoung items Select an item to highlight related items

History task Keep history to support undo Tasks from the past combinded

Extract Task Extraction of subcollection of parameters Allow to save the records that result from a search Save settings

Advanced Filtering Dynamic queries Numeric range sliders Alphasliders for names Bottons for small sets of categories

Commercial Information–retrieval systems Example – DIALOG or First Search Permit complex Boolean expressions with parentheses but they are difficult to use When we say or in English it means not both, but in Boolean OR is inclusive. New York and Boston ( result 0 )

Another form of filtering … Apply a user-constructed set of keywords to dynamically generated information. Such as incoming messages….. A social form of filtering is collaborative filtering ….. Music, Restaurants..

Summary Improved user interface to traditional databese-query or multimedia-document search will spawn appealing new products. The more Flexible the better… 15.7 Search in complex structured documents. graphics, images, sound or video persents grand opportunities for the design of advanced user interfaces and powerful search engines.