TileBars: Visualization of Term Distribution Information in Full Text Information Access

The field of information retrieval has traditionallyfocused on s consistingof titlesand abstracts. As a consequence, many underlying assumptions must be altered for retrieval from full-length text collections. This paper argues for making use of text structure when retrieving from full text documents, and presents a visualization paradigm, called TileBars, that demonstrates the usefulness of explicit term distribution information in Boolean-type queries. TileBars simultaneously and compactly indicate relative document length, query term frequency, and query term distribution. The patterns in a column of TileBars can be quickly scanned and deciphered, aiding users in making judgments about the potential relevance of the retrieved documents.

• Type: Conference
• Year: 1995
• Where: CHI
• Authors: Marti A. Hearst
• Keywords: CHI 1995, Full-length Text Collections, Human Computer Interaction, Query Term, Term Distribution