1 / 37

Usability in Browsing and Search Interfaces: Enhancing User Experience with Effective Browse Features

Learn about the importance of usability in browsing and search interfaces, including topics such as starting points, effective feedback, convenience, browsing methods, filtering and sorting, snippets, and design considerations.

kwanda
Download Presentation

Usability in Browsing and Search Interfaces: Enhancing User Experience with Effective Browse Features

An Image/Link below is provided (as is) to download presentation Download Policy: Content on the Website is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use and may not be sold / licensed / shared on other websites without getting consent from its author. Content is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use only. Download presentation by click this link. While downloading, if for some reason you are not able to download a presentation, the publisher may have deleted the file from their server. During download, if you can't get a presentation, the file might be deleted by the publisher.

E N D

Presentation Transcript

  1. CS/INFO 430Information Retrieval Lecture 23 Usability 1

  2. Course Administration Assignment 4 • Due Friday, December 1 • Extensions only for exceptional circumstances

  3. Usability Lectures Usability 1: Browsing and search interfaces Usability 2: Evaluation with human in the loop Usability 3: Usability design

  4. Browsing: The Human in the Loop Return objects Return hits Browse documents Search index

  5. Web Search: Browsing Users give queries of 2 to 4 words Most users click only on the first few results; few go beyond the fold on the first page 80% of users, use search engine to find sites search to find site browse to find information Amil Singhal, Google, 2004

  6. Browsing in Information Space Starting point x x x x x x x x x x x x x x Effectiveness depends on (a) Starting point (b) Effective feedback (c) Convenience

  7. Convenience when Browsing If documents are accessible online, user can browse content. • Can compensate for weaknesses in the underlying search system, e.g., the difficulty of indexing Web documents • Requires rapid delivery to the desktop Otherwise, the user can browse substitutes, e.g., catalog records, subject hierarchies, etc. • Puts heavy demands on the precision/recall of the underlying search system

  8. Browse: Catalog Record

  9. Hierarchical browsing Level 0 Level 1 Level 2

  10. Hierarchical browsing: collections

  11. Alphabetical browsing http://nsdl.org/

  12. Alphabetical browsing: subject headings

  13. Browsing the Content of Indexes Show the users the terms that occur in indexes, such as subject headings. Example: Library of Congress:American Memory http://memory.loc.gov/

  14. Subject headings used in index

  15. Browsing by Filtering and Sorting Filters allow users to reject categories of information. Sorting by various criteria allows users to organize information for rapid scanning Example: Research Libraries Group Cultural Materials http://cmi.rlg.org/

  16. Browse everything

  17. Filter "New York"

  18. Sort "date"

  19. Snippets • A snippet is a short record that a search system returns to describe and link to a hit. • Example: Web search “Nielsen evaluation heuristics” HeuristicEvaluation ... Jacob Nielsen's Online Writings on HeuristicEvaluation. How to conduct a heuristic evaluation; A list of ten recommended heuristics for usable interface design ...www.useit.com/papers/heuristic/ - 5k - Cached - Similar pages

  20. Usability of Search: Snippets Choices in designing snippets: • Dynamic (generated from query + document) or pre-computed (from document only) • Content only or with related information (e.g., subject hierarchies) • Highlighting of search terms • Length of snippet v. number on page User must understand why the hit was returned

  21. Dynamic Return Hits Dynamic snippets

  22. Precomputed Return Hits Pre-computed snippets

  23. Pre-computed Snippets In general dynamic snippets are superior because they fit the user's expectations, but they can fail badly. Example: Web search "brown topeka kansas" Legal Information Institute Brown v. Board of Education, 347 U.S. 483 (1954) (USSC+) 1. Syllabus , 2. Full Decision , 3. Syllabus & Opinions Only... www2.law.cornell.edu/cgi-bin/foliocgi.exe/...

  24. Dynamic Snippets Legal Information Institutewww2.law.cornell.edu/.../doc/%7B@1%7D/ hit_headings/words=4/hits_only - 2k - Oct 27, 2003 - Cached -Similar pages DOC BodyPage ... Case Information. Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka . No. 1. ... APPEAL FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE DISTRICT OF KANSAS [*]. Syllabus. ...www2.law.cornell.edu/.../doc/%7Bt26262%7D/ pageitems=%7Bbody%7D/hit_headings/words=4 - 13k - Cached -Similar pages

  25. Pre-computed Snippets

  26. Dynamic Snippets with Pre-computed Summary

  27. Dynamic Snippets with Pre-computed Summary Pre-computer summary, with space for dynamic snippet

  28. Dynamic Snippets with Pre-computed Summary Complete record with dynamic snippet

  29. Designing the Search PageMaking Decisions • Overall organization: • Spacious or cramped • Division of functionality to different pages • Positioning components in the interface • Emphasizing parts of the interface • Query insertion: insert text string or fill in text boxes • Interactivity of search results • Performance requirements

  30. Google Spacious organization

  31. AltaVista Division of functionality to different pages

  32. ACM Digital Library Emphasized components

  33. ACM Digital Library advance search Different ways to insert query

  34. Yahoo! Cramped organization

  35. The Old Yahoo! Interface

  36. The Yahoo! Interface The Yahoo interface is cluttered and unattractive, yet Yahoo is one of the most successful of all web sites. Why is this interface successful? • Very many branches from a single web page saves the need for hierarchy of menus. • Simple html markup ensures that the page renders quickly and accurately on all browsers. • Slow changes over the years means that users are familiar with it. http://www.yahoo.com/

More Related