Evaluating User Interfaces to Information Retrieval Systems: A Case Study on User Support

Designing good user interfaces to information retrieval systems is a complex activity. The design space is large and evaluation methodologies that go beyond the classical precision and recall figures are not well established. In this paper we present an evaluation of an intelligent interface that covers also the user-system interaction and measures user's satisfaction. More specifically, we describe an experiment that evaluates: (i) the added value of the semiautomatic query reformulation implemented in a prototype system; (ii) the importance of technical, terminological, and strategic supports and (iii) the best way to provide them. The interpretation of results leads to guidelines for the design of user interfaces to information retrieval systems and to some observations on the evaluation issue.

• Type: Conference
• Year: 1996
• Where: SIGIR
• Authors: Giorgio Brajnik, Stefano Mizzaro, Carlo Tasso
• Keywords: Information Management, Information Retrieval Systems, Semiautomatic Query Reformulation, SIGIR 1996, User Interfaces