From Information Retrieval to Hypertext and Back Again: The Role of Interaction in the Information

177 Pages·1998·10.66 MB·English

From Information Retrieval to Hypertext and Back Again:
The Role of Interaction in the
Information Exploration Interface
Gene Golovchinsky
A thesis submitted in confomiity with the requirements
for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy
Graduate Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering
University of Toronto
O Copyright by Gene Golovchinsky 1997
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From Information Retrieval to Hypertext and Back Again:
The Role of Interaction in the lnformation Exploration Interface
Doctor of Philosophy, 1997
Gene Golovchinsky
Graduate Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering,
University of Toronto
A bstract
This work explores the design space of user interfaces for large-scaie full-text database retrieval
systems. Research suggests that elements of hypertext interfaces may be merged with
traditional information retrieval (IR) algorithms to produce flexible hybrid interfaces for user-
directed information exploration. This work examines the effectiveness of multiple-view
newspaper-like interfaces, and describes a prototype that uses newspaper-style layouts to
organize information retrieval results. Finally, it explores some possible visualization
techniques designed to aid browsing performance.
The first of two experiments in this thesis examines the effectiveness of the simultaneous
display of several documents retrieved by a given query. Experimental results suggest that
viewed recall increases with increasing numbers of articles displayed on the screen
simultaneously. Subjects' decision-making strategies appear to be independent of user interface
factors.
The second experiment tests differences in behavior between query-based and link-based
browsing. Differences in performance are found brtween groups of users employing different
strategies, but not between interface conditions. These results suggest that dynamic query-
mediated hypertext interfaces are viable alternatives to more explicit queries, and that subjects'
intrinsic strategies have significant impact on their interaction with the system and on their
performance.
This work proposes an implementation of dynamic links in the WWW medium. It conciudes
with a discussion about the nature of hypertext interfaces and about the role of the user
interface in information exploration tasks, and suggests some avenues for future research in
this area.
Acknowledcrments
I would like to thank my parents for instilling in me the desire for knowledge; the rest was only
a rnatter of time.
-
My adviser, Professor Chignell, deserves much thanks. His support intellectual and
financial - over the past five years has made this work possible. His perceptions of the field,
and of research in general, have affected my curent work. and will continue to do so in the
future. Finally, his unflagging sense of hurnor has been a welcome cornpanion, both on and
off the research field.
1 would like to thank my Cornmittee for their patience with my ideas, and for their invaluable
feedback. My extemal reviewer, Professor Marchionini, deserves particular credit for agreeing
to corne to Toronto in November without first checking the weather.
The research group, that multitude sometimes known as the Hyperactives, has been
wonderfully - critically! - supportive; I've learned much over the years (and over pizza),
and shall miss the heated discussions.
Thank you Louisa, Norma and Teme!
Thanks also are due to my friends and CO-workers at GMD-IPSI in Darmstadt, Germany. This
thesis would not have been the same without Our times together.
Professor Meadow and Rick Kopak of the Faculty of Information Studies deserve special
thanks for arranging some last-minute expert subjects for one of my experirnents. Without
them, 1 would still be haunting the public libraries of Toronto.
Finally, I would like to thank al1 my fricnds who had the choice, and yet still put up with my
stupid jokes.
Table of Contents
Chapter 1 . Introduction .............. ... ...................................................... 1
1.1 Text display .......................................................................... 2
1 -2 Query formulation ................................................................... 2
1.3 Research motivation ................................................................. 3
1.4 Overview ............................................................................. 5
Chapter 2 . Literature Review .................................................................... 7
2.1 Information retrieval ................................................................ 8
2.1.1 Queries .................................................................... 8
2.1.1.1 ReIevance feedback .......................................... 9
2.1.2 Document representations ............................................... 10
2.1.2.1 Document vector mode1. ..................................... 10
2.1.2.2 Inference Networks ......................................... 10
2.1.2.3 Proximity models ............................................. 11
2.1.3 Evaluation ........................... ... .............................. 12
2.2 Hypertext ............................................................................. 13
2.3 Information ex~loratio.n.. ......................................................... 15
2.4 Electronic newspapLe rs .............................................................. 17
2.5 Visualization of search resuits ..................................................... 19
2.6 Conclusions ................ ... ................................................. 21
Chapter 3. Experimentd Prototypes ............................................................ 22
3.1 QRL ................................................................................... 22
.
3.2 StPatTREC ........................................................................... 24
3.2.1 SGML documents ....................................................... 25
3 .2.2 Interface ................................................................... 25
3.3 BrowsIR ................................................................... 28
Chapter 4 . VOIR, The Electronic Newspaper Prototype ..................................... 30
4.2 System architecture ................................................................. 31
4.3 Interface .............................................................................. 33
4.4 Query notation ....................................................................... 34
4.5 Search engine requirements ........................................................ 35
Chapter 5 . Experiment 1 ......................................................................... 36
5.1 Introduction ..........................................................................3 6
5.2 Experimental Design ................................................................ 37
5 -3 Research Hvpotheses ............................................................... 37
5.3.2 Q" *u ery notation ............................................................ 38
5.3.3 Expertise .................................................................. 39
5.4 Subjects. .............................................................................. 40
5.5 Methodology ......................................................................... 40
5.5.1 Task ....................................................................... 40
5.5.2 Software .................................................................. 41
5.5.3 Procedure ................................................................. 46
5.6 Dataset variables ..................................................................... 46
5.6.1 Independent measures ................................................... 47
5 .6.2 Dependent measures ..................................................... 47
5.7 Results ................................................................................4 8
5.7.1 Confirmatory analysis ...................................................4 8
5.7.1.1 Interface hypotheses ......................................... 48
5.7.1.2 Notation hypothesis .......................................... 50
5.7.1.3 Expertise hypotheses ........................................ 50
5.7.2 Exploratory analysis ..................................................... 51
5.7.2.1 Other effects ...................................................5 1
5.7.2.4 Cluster analysis ............................................... 55
5.8 Discussion ............................................................................ 59
5.8.1 Page flipping and viewed recall ........................................ 59
5.8.2 Subjects' strategies ...................................................... 60
5.8.3 User interface observations ............................................. 61
5.8.4 Conclusions .............................................................. 62
Chapter 6 . Dynamic Hypertext Newspaper Prototype ....................................... 64
6.1 Introduction .......................................................................... 64
6.1.1 Browsing context ........................................................ 65
6.1.2 Hypertext links ........................................................... 65
6.2 Context-setting links ................................................................ 65
6.3 Context-specific links ............................................................... 66
6.3.1 Imbedded anchors ....................................................... 66
6.3.2 Dynarnic link queries .................................................... 67
6.4 Context-independent links .......................................................... 72
6.5 Visualization ......................................................................... 72
6.5.1 Global visualization ...................................................... 72
6.5.2 Local visualization ....................................................... 73
6.6 Applications .......................................................................... 74
6.6.1 Dictionary of Art ......................................................... 74
6.6.2 HCI Bibliography ........................................................ 75
Chapter 7 . Expenment 2 ......................................................................... 76
7.1 Introduction .......................................................................... 76
7.2 Experimental Design ................................................................ 76
7.3 Research Hypotheses ............................................................... 77
7.4 Subjects ............................................................................... 78
7.5 Methodology ......................................................................... 78
7.5.1 Task ....................................................................... 78
7.5.2 Software .................................................................. 79
7.5.3 Procedure ................................................................. 83
7.6 Dataset variables ..................................................................... 84
7.6.1 Independent measures ................................................... 84
7.6.2 Dependent rneasures ..................................................... 85
7.7 Results ................................................................................8 6
7.7.1 Confirmatory analysis ................................................... 86
7.7.2 Exploratory andysis ..................................................... 88
7.7.2.1 Cluster analyses .............................................. 88
..........................................
7.7.2.2 Query effectiveness 91
7.7.2.3 Query strategy ................................................ 94
7.7.2.4S ubjective variables .......................................... 95
7.8 Discussion ............................................................................ 96
7.8.1 Effectiveness of query types ............................................ 99
7.8.2 Query strategy ............................................................ 101
7.9 Conciusions .................................................................... 102
Chapter 8 . Further Research ..................................................................... lû4
8.1 Extensions ................ ........................................................ 104
,.
8.1.1 Linking pandigms ....................................................... 104
8.1.2 Newspaper hypertext .................................................... 106
8.1.3 Negated terms ............................................................ 107
8.1.5 Static links ................................................................ 108
8.1 -6 Field-oriented queries ................................................... 109
8.1.7 Semantic hypertext ...................................................... 109
8.2 Applications .......................................................................... 110
8.2.1 Multi-lingual interfaces .................................................. 110
8.2.3 The Web .................................................................. 11 1
8.3 A framework for interactivity ...................................................... 113
Chapter 9 . Conclusions .......................................................................... 117
9.1 Introduction .......................................................................... 117
9.2 Contributions ........................................................................ 118
9.3 Summary ............................................................................. 121
References ......................................................................................... 123
Glossary ............................................................................................ 134
List of Tables
Table 5- 1 . Experimental design ................................................................. 37
Table 5.2 . Comparison of frequencies of relevant articles. .................................. 52
Table 5.3 . Correlations between dependent measures ....................................... 53
Table 5.4 . Variables used for cluster analysis ................................................. 56
Table 5.5 . Results of cluster anaiysis. ......................................................... 57
Table 5.7 . Searcher expertiss by cluster assignment crosstabulation. ...................... 57
Table 6- 1. Weighting schemes for weighted-sum operator. ................................ 67
Table 6.2 . Query expansion algorithms based on ternis from prior quenes ............... 70
Table 6.3 . Weight combinations for queries. ................................................. 70
Table 7- 1 . Experimental design ................................................................. 77
Table 7.2 . Recail and precision for initial page of each topic ................................ 83
Table 7.3 . Derived query type values for type variable ...................................... 85
Table 7.4 . Questionnaire response variables. ................................................. 86
Table 7.5 . ANOVA of query frequency vs . query type ...................................... 88
Table 7.6 . Recall and precision cornparisons by total query count. ........................ 89
Table 7.7 . Cross-tabulation of ~Iassificationm ethods ....................................... 90
Table 7.8 . Variable rnems for clusters. ........................................................ 90
Table 7.9 . Recall and precision cornparisons by cluster ..................................... 91
Table 7- 10 . Clusters based on normalized frequencies of different query types .......... 91
Table 7- 1 1 . Cornparison of reader/skimmer cluster assignment ............................ 91
Table 7- 12. Average recall and precision cornparisons by query type ..................... 93
Table 7- 13. Means for linking strategy clusters (ltqclust). .................................. 94
Table 7- 14. Means for strategy clusters (tqclust). ............................................ 95
Table 9- 1. Design innovations. ................................................................. 119
Table 9.2 . Experimental and methodological results ......................................... 120
List of Figures
Figure 2- 1 . Recent trends in information exploration interfaces. ........................... 16
Figure 3- 1. DQN graphical query .............................................................. 23
Figure 3-2 . (After Golovchinsky, 1993. Figure 2) The QRL browsing process .......- 24
Figure 3-3 . St PatTREC interface ............................................................... 26
Figure 3-4 . Architecture of StPatTREC. ...................................................... 27
Figure 3-5 . BrowsIR architecture. ............................................................. 29
Figure 4.1 . QRL mark up architecture. ........................................................ 32
Figure 4-2 . VOIR mark up architecture. ...................................................... 33
Figure 5- 1. Two-article VOIR interface. ...................................................... 42
Figure 5.2 . Four-article VOIR interface. ...................................................... 43
Figure 5.3 . Seven-article VOIR interface. ................................................... 4 4
Figure 5.4 . Relationship arnong sets used to compute recall and precision measures ...4 5
Figure 5.5 . Interaction between notation and expertise. ..................................... 50
Figure 5.6 . Distribution of judgments ......................................................... 53
Figure 5.7 . Distribution of mean time (in seconds) to select first relevant article ......... 54
Figure 5.8 . Distributions of judged recall and precision ..................................... 55
Figure 5.9 . Expertise-Notation interaction for the frequency of proxirnity slider use .... 58
Figure 6- 1 . Recall-precision tradeoff for the seven weighting schemes. .................. 69
Figure 6.2 . Precision-recall tradeoffs for query expansion algorithms. ................... 71
Figure 7- 1 . Sarnple expriment 2 query condition interface. ................................ 80
Figure 7.2 . Sarnple experiment 2 link condition interface ................................... 81
Figure 7.3 . Precision distribution for queries based on description of topics ............. 82
Figure 7-4 . Recall distribution for queries based on descriptions of topics ............... 82
Figure 7.5 . Distribution of subjects categorimd by number of quenes .................... 89
Figure 7.6a . Retneved precision vs . satisfaction with retrieved results ................... 96
Figure 7.6b . Judged precision vs . satisfaction with retrieved results ...................... 96
Figure 7.7 . Average performance of groups of subjects between two experiments. ....- 98
Figure 7.8 . Cornparison of performance in Experiment 1 and Experiment 2 ............. 99
Figure 7.9a . Average retrieved recall vs . query type and strategy ......................... 100
Figure 7.9b . Average retrieved precision vs . query type and strategy. .................... 100
Figure 7.9~. Average viewed recail vs . query type and strategy ...........................1 00
Figure 7.9d . Average viewed precision vs . query type and strategy. ..................... 100
Figure 7.9e . Average judged recall vs . query type and strategy ............................ 100
Figure 7.9f . Average judged precision vs . query type and strategy ....................... 100
Figure 7- 10. Interaction plots for recall and precision by strategy ......................... 102
Figure 8- 1 . Newspaper layout strategies. ..................................................... 107
Figure 8.3 . Users' interaction with the system. .............................................. 115
vii
List of Appendices
Appendix A . Topics used in Experiment 1 ..................................................... 136
Appendix B . Instructions for Experirnent 1 ................................................... 140
instructions for the CQN condition .................................................... 140
Instructions for DQNc ondition ........................................................ 143
Appendix C . Topics used in Experiment 2 ..................................................... 146
Appendix D . Instructions for Experiment 2 .................................................... 152
Instructions for query condition ........................................................ 152
Instructions for naive link condition ................................................... 153
Instructions for informed link condition ............................................... 154
Appendix E. Questionnaires for Experiment 2 ................................................ 156
Post-topic questionnaire. ................................................................ 156
Post-test questionnaire. query condition .............................................. 157
Post-test questionnaire, link conditions ............................................... 158
Appendix F. Variables used in Expenment 1 .................................................. 160
Appendix G. Variables used in Expenment 2 ................................................. 163