How Useful Are Natural Language Interfaces to the Semantic Web for Casual End-Users?

Natural language interfaces offer end-users a familiar and convenient option for querying ontology-based knowledge bases. Several studies have shown that they can achieve high retrieval performance as well as domain independence. This paper focuses on usability and investigates if NLIs are useful from an end-user's point of view. To that end, we introduce four interfaces each allowing a different query language and present a usability study benchmarking these interfaces. The results of the study reveal a clear preference for full sentences as query language and confirm that NLIs are useful for querying Semantic Web data.

[1]  Rolf Schwitter,et al.  Let's talk in description logic via controlled natural language , 2006 .

[2]  Helmut Berger,et al.  A Natural Language Query Interface for Tourism Information , 2003, ENTER.

[3]  Michael Jason Minock,et al.  A Phrasal Approach to Natural Language Interfaces over Databases , 2005, NLDB.

[4]  Richard Power,et al.  Intuitive querying of e-Health data repositories , 2005 .

[5]  Abraham Bernstein,et al.  Querying the Semantic Web with Ginseng: A Guided Input Natural Language Search Engine , 2009 .

[6]  Bijan Parsia,et al.  CropCircles: Topology Sensitive Visualization of OWL Class Hierarchies , 2006, SEMWEB.

[7]  B. Thomas,et al.  Usability Evaluation In Industry , 1996 .

[8]  Enrico Motta,et al.  PowerAqua: Fishing the Semantic Web , 2006, ESWC.

[9]  Abraham Bernstein,et al.  Querix: A Natural Language Interface to Query Ontologies Based on Clarification Dialogs , 2006 .

[10]  Nicola Guarino,et al.  OntoSeek: content-based access to the Web , 1999, IEEE Intell. Syst..

[11]  Dean Allemang,et al.  The Semantic Web - ISWC 2006, 5th International Semantic Web Conference, ISWC 2006, Athens, GA, USA, November 5-9, 2006, Proceedings , 2006, SEMWEB.

[12]  Jimmy J. Lin,et al.  Natural Language Annotations for the Semantic Web , 2002, OTM.

[13]  Christoph Meinel,et al.  Student's Perception of a Semantic Search Engine , 2005, CELDA.

[14]  John Davies,et al.  Squirrel: An Advanced Semantic Search and Browse Facility , 2007, ESWC.

[15]  Raymond J. Mooney,et al.  Using Multiple Clause Constructors in Inductive Logic Programming for Semantic Parsing , 2001, ECML.

[16]  J. B. Brooke,et al.  SUS: A 'Quick and Dirty' Usability Scale , 1996 .

[17]  Oren Etzioni,et al.  Towards a theory of natural language interfaces to databases , 2003, IUI '03.

[18]  Philipp Cimiano,et al.  Towards portable natural language interfaces to knowledge bases - The case of the ORAKEL system , 2008, Data Knowl. Eng..

[19]  Harry R. Tennant,et al.  Talk to Your Semantic Web , 2005, IEEE Internet Comput..

[20]  Peter Thanisch,et al.  Natural language interfaces to databases – an introduction , 1995, Natural Language Engineering.

[21]  Berthold Crysmann,et al.  Question answering from structured knowledge sources , 2007, J. Appl. Log..

[22]  Vangelis Karkaletsis,et al.  Exploiting OWL Ontologies in the Multilingual Generation of Object Descriptions , 2005, ENLG.

[23]  Chong Wang,et al.  PANTO: A Portable Natural Language Interface to Ontologies , 2007, ESWC.

[24]  Anselm Spoerri,et al.  InfoCrystal: a visual tool for information retrieval & management , 1993, CIKM '93.

[25]  Abraham Bernstein,et al.  Querying Ontologies: A Controlled English Interface for End-Users , 2005, SEMWEB.

[26]  Enrico Motta,et al.  The Semantic Web - ISWC 2005, 4th International Semantic Web Conference, ISWC 2005, Galway, Ireland, November 6-10, 2005, Proceedings , 2005, SEMWEB.

[27]  Abraham Bernstein,et al.  GINO - A Guided Input Natural Language Ontology Editor , 2006, SEMWEB.

[28]  Esther Kaufmann.  Talking to the Semantic Web - Query Interfaces to Ontologies for the Casual User , 2006, International Semantic Web Conference.

[29]  Troels Andreasen.  An approach to knowledge-based query evaluation , 2003, Fuzzy Sets Syst..

[30]  Philipp Cimiano,et al.  ORAKEL: A Portable Natural Language Interface to Knowledge Bases , 2007 .