Chapter 10: User Interfaces and Visualization
Contents
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Modern Information Retrieval Chapter 10: User Interfaces and Visualization |
Contents |
An important part of the information access process is query reformulation, and a proven effective technique for query reformulation is relevance feedback. In its original form, relevance feedback refers to an interaction cycle in which the user selects a small set of documents that appear to be relevant to the query, and the system then uses features derived from these selected relevant documents to revise the original query. This revised query is then executed and a new set of documents is returned. Documents from the original set can appear in the new results list, although they are likely to appear in a different rank order. Relevance feedback in its original form has been shown to be an effective mechanism for improving retrieval results in a variety of studies and settings [#!salton90a!#,#!harman92c!#,#!buckley94b!#]. In recent years the scope of ideas that can be classified under this term has widened greatly.=-1
Relevance feedback introduces important design choices, including which operations should be performed automatically by the system and which should be user initiated and controlled. Bates discusses this issue in detail [#!bates90b!#], asserting that despite the emphasis in modern systems to try to automate the entire process, an intermediate approach in which the system helps automate search at a strategic level is preferable. Bates suggests an analogy of an automatic camera versus one with adjustable lenses and shutter speeds. On many occasions, a quick, easy method that requires little training or thought is appropriate. At other times the user needs more control over the operation of the machinery, while still not wanting to know about the low level details of its operation.
A related idea is that, for any interface, control should be described
in terms of the task being done, not in terms of how the machine can
be made to accomplish the task [#!norman88!#]. Continuing the
camera analogy, the user should be able to control the
mood created by the photograph, rather than the adjustment of the lens.
In information access systems, control should be over the kind of
information returned, not over which terms are used to modify the
query. Unfortunately it is often quite difficult to build interfaces
to complex systems that behave in this manner.