A generative programming approach to interactive information retrieval: insights and experiences

We describe the application of generative programming to a problem in interactive information retrieval. The particular interactive information retrieval problem we study is the support for ‘out of turn interaction' with a website – how a user can communicate input to a website when the site is not soliciting such information on the current page, but will do so on a subsequent page. Our solution approach makes generous use of program transformations (partial evaluation, currying, and slicing) to delay the site's current solicitation for input until after the user's out-of-turn input is processed. We illustrate how studying out-of-turn interaction through a generative lens leads to several valuable insights: (i) the concept of a web dialog, (ii) an improved understanding of web taxonomies, and (iii) new web interaction techniques and interfaces. These notions allow us to cast the design of interactive (and responsive) websites in terms of the underlying dialog structure and, further, suggest a simple implementation strategy with a clean separation of concerns. We also highlight new research directions opened up by the generative programming approach to interactive information retrieval such as the idea of web interaction axioms.

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