A review of research on human-computer interfaces for online information retrieval systems

Purpose – The purpose of this article is to review the research on human‐computer interfaces for library‐based commercial online information retrieval (IR) systems.Design/methodology/approach – The review first focuses on basic interface issues for information retrieval such as interface style, end‐user searching, query formulation, relevance feedback and browsing. The second part deals with cognitive engineering in IR including mental models and individual differences. Finally, the topics on user interface engineering are covered. These include user interface guidelines, usability evaluation methods and interface engineering techniques.Findings – The review shows that user interface design has received a limited attention from IR researchers. There is a need for adopting human‐computer interaction (HCI) techniques into IR interface designs, but this issue has not yet been fully recognised by the commercial database vendors and distributors. The paper recommends that applying HCI techniques could help in ...

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