A few months ago I published a post describing our InnovateUK research project investigating professional search strategies in the workplace. I’m pleased to say that the project has now completed, and we are currently analyzing the results. As you may recall, we surveyed a number of professions, and the one we examined first is (cue… Continue reading Searching for talent: The information retrieval challenges of recruitment professionals (part 1)
Author: Tony Russell-Rose
Search strategies considered harmful
Over the last few months I’ve been looking in detail at the process of search strategy formulation, i.e. the various ways in which professionals go about solving the problem of resolving complex information needs. Some professions (e.g. recruitment professionals) employ complex search queries to address sourcing needs, generating queries such as this:
Mining search logs for usage patterns (pt 2)
In a previous post I discussed some initial investigations into the use of unsupervised learning techniques (i.e. clustering) to identify usage patterns in web search logs. As you may recall, we had some initial success in finding interesting patterns of user behaviour in the AOL log, but when we tried to extend this and replicate… Continue reading Mining search logs for usage patterns (pt 2)
Mining search logs for usage patterns (Part 1)
As I mentioned in a previous post I’ve recently been looking into the challenges of search log analysis and in particular the prospects for deriving a ‘taxonomy of search sessions’. The idea is that if we can find distinct, repeatable patterns of behaviour in search logs then we can use these to better understand user… Continue reading Mining search logs for usage patterns (Part 1)
New year, new direction?
The start of a new year is always a good time to reflect on the role and impact of groups such as ours, and ask the question ‘ why are we here?’ For many of us on the IRSG committee, the answer is simple: to promote the dissemination of IR knowledge and best practice in… Continue reading New year, new direction?
Tabs, facets and views: getting the interaction right
As the dominant interaction paradigm used throughout the world of eCommerce, faceted search provides a framework that supports the exploration and selection among thousands – if not millions – of diverse items. But sometimes faceted search needs to be combined with other types of UI control to provide alternative ways to view and organise content.… Continue reading Tabs, facets and views: getting the interaction right
Interaction Models for Faceted Search
Introduction Faceted search offers tremendous potential for transforming the search experience. It provides a flexible framework by which users can satisfy a wide variety of information needs, ranging from simple fact retrieval to complex exploratory search and discovery scenarios. But there is one design aspect of faceted search that is particuarly hard to get right:… Continue reading Interaction Models for Faceted Search
New Book: Designing the Search Experience
Remember the Yahoo! Directory? It was a hand-built taxonomy that allowed users to browse and discover Internet resources. By categorizing sites by topic and location, it became the definitive map of the World Wide Web. But at the turn of the millennium, Yahoo! transformed itself from a directory into a search engine. The task of… Continue reading New Book: Designing the Search Experience
Where am I? Techniques for wayfinding and navigation in faceted search
Faceted search enables users to intuitively explore complex information spaces by progressively refining their choices in each dimension. When combined with keyword search, this approach becomes incredibly powerful: so much so that faceted search is now the dominant interaction paradigm for most eCommerce sites and is being applied to an increasingly diverse range of search and… Continue reading Where am I? Techniques for wayfinding and navigation in faceted search
Designing Faceted Search: Getting the basics right (pt 3)
Faceted search offers tremendous potential for transforming the search experience. It provides a flexible framework by which users can satisfy a wide variety of information needs, ranging from simple fact retrieval to complex exploratory search and discovery-oriented problem solving. But how do we extend such a framework to accommodate not just dozens of facet values,… Continue reading Designing Faceted Search: Getting the basics right (pt 3)