1. Incorporating Metadata into Search User Interfaces
Marti Hearst Rashmi Sinha
Ame Elliott Jen English
Ping Yee Kirsten Swearington
UC Berkeley

2. Main Ideas Search is changing: Web design is changing: Two key ideas:
More emphasis on flexibly showing next choices
Less emphasis on ranking
Web design is changing:
More emphasis on dynamically determined views
Less emphasis on pre-determined links
Two key ideas:
Task-specific design
Harnessing the power of metadata

3. A Taxonomy of WebSites Catalog Sites Web-based Information Systems
Web-Presence Sites
Service-Oriented Sites
high
Complexity
of Data
low
low
high
Complexity of Applications
From Mecca et al.,
WebDB’99

4. An Important Trend Web sites generated from databases Implications:
Web sites can adapt to user actions
Web sites can be instrumented

5. Navigation on the Web
Web search engines are good at getting people to the right site.
But … what happens when the user reaches the site?
Follow Links
… or …
Search

6. Following Hyperlinks Site Search
Works great when it is clear where to go next
Frustrating when the desired directions are undetectable or unavailable
Site Search
Is not getting good reviews

7. An Analogy
text search
hypertext

8. Goal: An All-Tertrain Vehicle
The best of both techniques
A vehicle that magically lays down track to suggest choices of where you want to go next based on what you’ve done so far and what you are trying to do
The tracks follow the lay of the land and go everywhere, but cross over the crevasses
The tracks allow you to back up easily

9. New interfaces are mixing and matching thesaurus-style metadata
This is an abrupt transition from workspace. I think some kind of title slide goes between.
I think your saying that metadata can be used (in conjunction with) workspaces to further restrict search – but now would be a good time to have a navigation slide.
Time/Date
Topic
Role
GeoRegion +
The question: how to do this effectively?

10. Goals for Metadata Usage
Well-integrated with search
Provides useful hints of where to go next
Tailored to task as it develops
Personalized
Dynamic
This is the same as slide 45

11. The FLAMENCO Project Main goal: Answer questions such as:
FLexible Access using MEtadata in Novel Combinations
Main goal:
Perform systematic studies to determine how metadata should be incorporated into search
Answer questions such as:
Given a set of user goals and a set of information:
How many metadata combinations to show?
What level of detail to show?
How best to preview and postview choices?

12. Evaluation Methodology
Regression Test
Select a set of tasks
Use these throughout the evaluation
Start with a baseline system
Evaluate using the test tasks
Add a feature
Evaluation again
Compare to baseline
Only retain those changes that improve results

13. Recipe Example

14. soar.berkeley.edu/recipes

15. soar.berkeley.edu/recipes

16. soar.berkeley.edu/recipes

21. Epicurious Metadata Usage
Advantages
Creates combinations of metadata on the fly
Different metadata choices show the same information in different ways
Previews show how many recipes will result
Easy to back up
Supports several task types
``Help me find a summer pasta,'' (ingredient type with event type),
``How can I use an avocado in a salad?'' (ingredient type with dish type),
``How can I bake sea-bass'' (preparation type and ingredient type)

22. Metadata usage in Epicurious
Prepare
Cuisine
Ingredient
Dish
Recipe

23. Metadata usage in Epicurious
Prepare
Cuisine
Ingredient
Dish I
Select
Prepare
Cuisine
Dish

24. Metadata usage in Epicurious
Prepare
Cuisine
Ingredient
Dish
>
Group by I
Prepare
Cuisine
Dish

25. Metadata usage in Epicurious
Prepare
Cuisine
Ingredient
Dish
> I
Prepare
Cuisine
Dish
Group by

26. Metadata usage in Epicurious
Prepare
Cuisine
Ingredient
Dish
> I
Prepare
Cuisine
Dish
Select I
Cuisine
Prepare
Group by

27. Metadata Usage in Epicurious
Can choose category types in any order
But categories never more than one level deep
And can never use more than one instance of a category
Even though items may be assigned more than one of each category type
Items (recipes) are dead-ends
Don’t link to “more like this”
Not fully integrated with search

28. Epicurious Metadata Usage
Problem: lacks integration with search

29. “Parametric” Search From an XML glossary
"A search request submitted to a search or database engine delivered with consideration for the metadata of the underlying dataset.”
A survey of sites using parametric search:
(see product family search)
(Dieselpoint)
(for Dieselpoint 2.0 demo)
(Requisite's BugsEye)
(Saqqara's one step)

30. “Parametric” Search Sites
Goal is to focus on product group for comparison shopping.
Common Procedure
Begin with a list of product "families" or groups.
User selects a category, and is prompted to
1) select a sub-category from a list of hyperlinks or
2) select search parameters using a form
If the number of results is too big, the system may prompt the user to refine the search further.
When an acceptable number of results is returned, the user sees a list of products which can be:
1) sorted by various criteria
2) selected for display in a comparison table
3) viewed individually with more detail.

31. “Parametric” Search Observations:
Only one facet (appropriate for products?)
No query previews
Breadcrumbs rare
Many allow sorting by attribute to facilitate comparison
“Others like this” simply moves up the hierarchy

32. Application to Biomedical Text

33. A steroid-induced acute psychosis in a child with athsma.
Asthma > Steroids
A steroid-induced acute psychosis in a child with athsma.
Management of steroid-dependent asthma with methotrexate.
Steroids
Pregnanes
Pregnadienes (5)
Prednisone (5)
Pregnenes
Budesonide (4)
Corticosterone (3)
Other Views
Admin & Dosage (50)
Drug Effects (20
Therapeutic Use (25)
Risk Factors (4)
More …
User Preferred
Musculoskeletal (4)
Drug Resistance (6)
All Categories (99)
99 Documents: [Sort by author] [Sort by popularity] [Sort by Steroids] [Cluster]
1. Effect of short-course budesonide on the bone turnover of asthmatic children.
2. Effect of prednisone on response to influenza virus vaccine in asthmatic children. …

34. A steroid-induced acute psychosis in a child with athsma.
Asthma > Steroids
A steroid-induced acute psychosis in a child with athsma.
Management of steroid-dependent asthma with methotrexate.
Steroids
Pregnanes
Pregnadienes (5)
Prednisone (5)
Pregnenes
Budesonide (4)
Corticosterone (3)
Other Views
Admin & Dosage (50)
Drug Effects (20
Therapeutic Use (25)
Risk Factors (4)
More …
User Preferred
Musculoskeletal (4)
Drug Resistance (6)
All Categories (99)
99 Documents: [Sort by author] [Sort by popularity] [Sort by Steroids] [Cluster]
1. Effect of short-course budesonide on the bone turnover of asthmatic children.
2. Effect of prednisone on response to influenza virus vaccine in asthmatic children. …

35. A steroid-induced acute psychosis in a child with athsma.
Asthma > Steroids
A steroid-induced acute psychosis in a child with athsma.
Management of steroid-dependent asthma with methotrexate.
Steroids
Pregnanes
Pregnadienes (5)
Prednisone (5)
Pregnenes
Budesonide (4)
Corticosterone (3)
Other Views
Admin & Dosage (50)
Drug Effects (20
Therapeutic Use (25)
Risk Factors (4)
More …
User Preferred
Musculoskeletal (4)
Drug Resistance (6)
All Categories (99)
99 Documents: [Sort by author] [Sort by popularity] [Sort by Steroids] [Cluster]
1. Effect of short-course budesonide on the bone turnover of asthmatic children.
2. Effect of prednisone on response to influenza virus vaccine in asthmatic children. …

36. Asthma > Steroids > Admin & Dosage
Dosage levels for asthmatic steroids: A survey.
Related Categories
Inhalators (40)
Emotional Effects (25)
Preferred Suppliers (30)
User Preferred
Musculoskeletal (0)
Drug Resistance (2)
All Categories (50)
Steroids
Pregnanes
Pregnadienes (3)
Prednisone (5)
50 Documents: [Sort by author] [Sort by popularity] [Sort by Dosage] [Cluster]
1. Optimal dosage levels for prednisone in the treatment of childhood asthma.
2. …

37. Other paths: back up and go forward
Asthma > Steroids > Budesonide > Huang
Asthma > Huang > Budesonide
Asthma > Steroids
Asthma > Steroids > Budesonide

38. Medical example Use dynamic previews
Allow user to select metadata in any order
At each step, show different types of relevant metadata,
based on prior steps and personal history,
include # of documents
Previews restricted to only those metadata types that might be helpful

39. Dynamic Metadata Previews
How different from Yahoo & Amazon?
Dynamically determine what to show next
Yahoo’s combos are predefined
Amazon’s are also predefined, and limited to taste and general topic only
A way to seamlessly integrate
Related topics
User preferences (personalization)
Context-sensitivity

40. Application to Image Search

41. Summary
Investigating how to design websites containing large sets of items
Biomedical text
Architectural images
Metadata is being mixed and matched in interesting ways, but there are no guidelines on what works

42. Summary
Our goals
Systematically determine what works, with the following emphases:
Task-centric
Integrate metadata with search
Dynamic previews
Easily retrace steps
Develop recommendations that reflect both the task structure and the richness of the information structure
In future: integrate with more sophisticated displays