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
Category: Feature Article
Search: Emergent and Extrinsic Semantics
Semantics is a term often used in the search technology and information retrieval community these days. A distinction is drawn between semantic and traditional search, implying that somehow semantic search is a more advanced or sophisticated form. My claim in this article is that there are actually two forms of semantic search: emergent and extrinsic.… Continue reading Search: Emergent and Extrinsic Semantics
Hybrid Parallel Classifiers for Managing Big Data with Hierarchies
“Big Data” is one of the latest buzzwords in the IT industry nowadays. Companies are building up huge stores of data running into terabytes and more. Data hierarchies are getting bigger and bigger and more complex. At the same time, search/categorization speeds are also expected to increase. Single classifiers are now unable to deal with… Continue reading Hybrid Parallel Classifiers for Managing Big Data with Hierarchies
IR Made In Germany – The German IR Special Interest Group
Introduction – IR Made In Germany 2012 marked an exciting year for the German Information Retrieval community, when for the first time ever with Norbert Fuhr a German was awarded the prestigious Gerard Salton Award. Besides being a well-deserved personal award, this brings with it a nice appreciation of the work performed by the German… Continue reading IR Made In Germany – The German IR Special Interest Group
Webis Group, Weimar
The Web Technology and Information Systems group, Webis for short (www.webis.de), is part of the media faculty at the Bauhaus-Universität Weimar. The faculty provides, among others, the study course Computer Science and Media (both bachelor and master) and has a strong commitment to research in the field of digital media and information technology. The Webis… Continue reading Webis Group, Weimar
Information Retrieval between Disciplines: Computer Science and Information Science – The IR group at the University of Hildesheim
Information Retrieval Research in Germany is mainly done within the Computer Science Community represented by the Special Interest Group. But there is also a considerable amount of work done within the smaller Information Science Community in the German speaking countries. The University of Hildesheim forms a link between these otherwise largely distinct communities. Information Science… Continue reading Information Retrieval between Disciplines: Computer Science and Information Science – The IR group at the University of Hildesheim
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
The Future of Information
Web pages are dead. The future of information—and how people interact with it—is undergoing a profound metamorphosis. Our eulogy must begin long before web pages were conceived. Before the Internet, there was the written word; the book was the preeminent artefact for disseminating and assimilating information. The Scroll and the Table of Contents In their early… Continue reading The Future of Information
Design Principles for Mobile Search
Apple’s iOS Human Interface Guidelines and Google’s Android Design Guidelines both provide valuable guidance for designing general mobile applications. But there are a number of design principles that can help us achieve effective mobile search experiences in particular. Namely, most mobile search applications should prioritize content over controls, provide answers over results, and ensure cross-channel continuity.