Architecture of a Blended-Query and Result-Visualization Mechanism for Web-Accessible Databases and Associated Implementation Issues

The explosion of information on the web and the increased trend towards seeking information from the web has given rise to a need for a mechanism that would allow querying from a group of sites simultaneously. Visualization of all the retrieved data tiled appropriately on a single screen goes a long way in assisting the user in assimilating the retrieved information. A new mechanism for "blended querying" is suggested here, which comprises a two-fold mechanism of prioritized multi-database querying which retrieves a series of combinations in the prioritized order from different web sites and summary querying which allows further querying on the previously retrieved result. The associated visualization tool simultaneously screens the various results retrieved into multiple windows, which are tiled on the screen so that all are visible at once. The implementation details are also described in this paper.