Relational browser + + : An interface for exploring and searching large information collection

The size and breadth of digital government information published on the web (such as the huge amount of statistics data generated by wide range of government agencies) makes it difficult for people to quickly grasp what data is and is not available. Consequently, people usually need an overview of the published information to help them decide if it is worthwhile to look further. As they do look further, it is helpful for their searching and browsing to get an idea of what is in the web site and how many items are available. We believe that users of digital government information will be well-served by highly interactive user interfaces that support alternative views of the information partitions/collections/results sets. The Relation Browser (RB) is such a highly interactive interface for people to explore and search useful information. It has been undergoing development and revision for several years and this paper described the functionality and design process for the most recent version, named RB++. The RB++ provides several interface features to facilitate this process, among which are: 1. global overview of the collection and various partitions within it. 2. highly interactive interface for exploring the collection and items within it. 3. highly interactive and flexible searching utility. 4. Tightly coupling these searching and browsing capabilities.

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