Combining keyword search and forms for ad hoc querying of databases

A common criticism of database systems is that they are hard to query for users uncomfortable with a formal query language. To address this problem, form-based interfaces and keyword search have been proposed; while both have benefits, both also have limitations. In this paper, we investigate combining the two with the hopes of creating an approach that provides the best of both. Specifically, we propose to take as input a target database and then generate and index a set of query forms offline. At query time, a user with a question to be answered issues standard keyword search queries; but instead of returning tuples, the system returns forms relevant to the question. The user may then build a structured query with one of these forms and submit it back to the system for evaluation. In this paper, we address challenges that arise in form generation, keyword search over forms, and ranking and displaying these forms. We explore techniques to tackle these challenges, and present experimental results suggesting that the approach of combining keyword search and form-based interfaces is promising.