A Pool of Queries: Interactive Multidimensional Query Visualization for Information Seeking in Digital Libraries

Abstract

In this article, I present a novel relational visualization that supports people at exploration of scientific literature in digital libraries. This visualization provides an integrated view of multiple dimensions concealed in the scientific literature. It displays, for example, authors and scientific organizations together with freely defined search queries and highlights the intersections between them. The proposed visual representation introduces interactive drag-and-drop operations for manipulation of queries in order to retrieve further results. These operations enable information seekers to employ efficient online search strategies that involve Boolean AND, OR and NOT operators. In doing so, an information seeker can refine (or relax) various search queries in an interactive way during a focusing or a defocusing phase. The intersections of queries are made explicitly visible to enable the information seeker to build an individual picture of the research area under investigation and to avoid frustrating ‘zero hit’ situations.