Augmenting the Perception of Web Search Results
Anwar Alhenshiri, Stephen Brooks, Carolyn Watters, Michael Shepherd
International Journal of Information Studies , Vol. 3, No. 1, 2011.
DOI: 
Link: http://www.istudies.net/journal/sites/default/files/Augmenting%20the%20Perception%20of%20Web%20Search%20Results_0.pdf
Abstract:
The evolutionary nature of the web and the massive amounts of information posted on daily basis make it necessary to continuously attempt to improve the relevancy of web search results. Finding results that best suit the needs of every individual is a very challenging problem. In most cases, what users attempt to achieve on the web is beyond a simple request that can be answered through submitting a simple search query. The concept of a task has been of interest to those attempting to improve the effectiveness of users retrieving web information. In this paper, the most common type of task on the web which is information gathering was taken into consideration. The research presented here concerns a visual interface that uses visualization, visual query reformulation, and visual clustering as factors intended to improve the process of web information gathering. A user study was conducted to evaluate the Visual Search Engine (VSE). The results indicate that the use of visual features improved the effectiveness of users gathering web information. The VSE was compared to Google in the study. The paper presents recommendations for future research directions.