Modern Information Retrieval Chapter 10: User Interfaces and Visualization

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3. Lattices

retrieval results!lattices lattices

Several researchers have employed a graphical depiction of a mathematical lattice for the purposes of query formulation, where the query consists of a set of constraints on a hierarchy of categories (actually, semantic attributes in these systems) [#!gpedersen93!#,#!carpineto96!#]. This is one solution to the problem of displaying documents in terms of multiple attributes; a document containing terms A, B, C, and D could be placed at a point in the lattice with these four categories as parents. However, if such a representation were to be applied to retrieval results instead of query formulation, the lattice layout would in most cases be too complex to allow for readability.

None of the displays discussed in this subsection have been evaluated for effectiveness at improving query specification or understanding of retrieval results, but they are intriguing ideas and perhaps are useful in conjunction with other displays.