Design of a browsing interface for information retrieval

Abstract

In conventional Boolean retrieval systems, users have difficulty controlling the amount of output obtained from a given query. This paper describes the design of a user interface which permits gradual enlargement or refinement of the user's query by browsing through a graph of term and document subsets. This graph is obtained from a lattice automatically generated from the usual document-term relation. The major design features of the proposed interface are the integration of menu, fill-in the blank and direct manipulation modes of interaction within the “fisheye view” [Furnas, 1986] paradigm. A prototype user interface incorporating some of these ideas has been implemented on a microcomputer.