A Fuzzy Visual Query Language for a Domain-Specific Web Search Engine

A?goVista is a web-based search engine that assists programmers to find algorithms and implementations that solve specific problems. A?goVista is not keyword based but rather requires users to provide -- in a very simple textual language -- input?output samples that describe the behavior of their needed algorithm. Unfortunately, even this simple language has proven too challenging for casual users.To overcome this problem and make A?goVista more accessible to novice programmers, we are designing and prototyping a visual language for creating A?goVista queries. Since web users do not have the patience to learn fancy query languages (be they textual or visual), our goal is to make this language and its implementation natural enough to require virtually no explanation or user training.