ULYSSES: A Lattice-Based Multiple Interaction Strategy Retrieval Interface

We present a two-stage system for information exploration and retrieval. The first stage, named GALOIS, organizes the information contained into a database into a particular lattice structure; the second stage, named ULYSSES, is a visual interface to access the structure built in the earlier stage. In this paper we focus on the latter. ULYSSES is based on a tight integration of traditional and novel user interaction paradigms that can be seen as a search&bound approach to information retrieval. The user may search the retrieval space by browsing or querying, but he or she may also bound the retrieval space by specifying constraints that the information contained in it has to satisfy. These interaction modes can be naturally combined to produce a hybrid retrieval strategy that best reflects the user goals and his/her domain knowledge. The retrieval effectiveness of our system has been tested in an experiment on subject searching where it compared favourably with respect to a Boolean retrieval system.

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