Modern Information Retrieval Chapter 10: User Interfaces and Visualization

Contents

  
2. The SuperBook Layout

interface design!Superbook layout Superbook layout

The layout of the InfoGrid is quite similar to that of SuperBook (see section ). The main difference is that SuperBook retains the table of contents-like display in the main left-hand pane, along with indicators of how many documents containing search hits occur in each level of the outline. Like InfoGrid, the main pane of the right-hand side is used to display selected documents.! !

Query formulation is done just below the table of contents view (although in earlier versions this appeared in a separate window). Terms related to the user's query are shown in this window as well. Large images appear in pop-up overlapping windows.

The SuperBook layout is the result of several cycles of iterative design [#!landauer93!#]. Earlier versions used overlapping windows instead of a monolithic layout, allowing users to sweep out a rectangular area on the screen in order to create a new text box. This new text box had its own set of buttons that allowed users to jump to occurrences of highlighted words in other documents or to the table of contents. SuperBook was redesigned after noting results of experimental studies [#!hauptmann83!#,#!maclean85!#] showing that users can be more efficient if given fewer, well chosen interaction paths, rather than allowing wide latitude (A recent study of auditory interfaces found that although users were more efficient with a more flexible interface, they nevertheless preferred the more rigid, predictable interface [#!walker98!#]). The designers also took careful note of log files of user interactions. Before the redesign, users had to choose to view the overall frequency of a hit, move the mouse to the table of contents window, click the button and wait for the results to be updated. Since this pattern was observed to occur quite frequently, in the next version of the interface, the system was redesigned to automatically perform this sequence of actions immediately after a search was run.

The SuperBook designers also attempted a redesign to allow the interface to fit into smaller displays. The redesign made use of small, overlapping windows. Some of the interaction sequences that were found useful in this more constrained environment were integrated into later designs for large monolithic displays.