An interaction framework for mobile web search

This paper describes the architecture and the functionalities of a clustering search engine prototypal system, named Matrioshka, whose peculiarity is the flexibility of the interaction framework on which it is based. Specifically, in this paper we focus on the mobile version of the system. This framework has two main characteristics: firstly, it summarizes the results of one or more search services (like search engines) requests by organizing them into labeled clusters that are better rendered on a small screen than a long ranked list of documents. Secondly, the user interface provides some high level operators for cluster manipulation, combination, and re-ranking; the user can easily select them from a menu, without much burden to capture the relevant documents hidden in the large set of retrieved ones. These operators are part of a novel conception language, specifically defined for exploring the results retrieved by several internet search services.