=Paper=
{{Paper
|id=Vol-512/paper-16
|storemode=property
|title=Catching the User - Logging the Information Retrieval Dialogue
|pdfUrl=https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-512/paper16.pdf
|volume=Vol-512
|dblpUrl=https://dblp.org/rec/conf/sigir/LandwichKH09
}}
==Catching the User - Logging the Information Retrieval Dialogue==
https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-512/paper16.pdf
Catching the User - Logging the Information Retrieval
Dialogue
Paul Landwich Claus-Peter Klas Matthias Hemmje
FernUniversität in Hagen FernUniversität in Hagen FernUniversität in Hagen
Germany Germany Germany
paul.landwich@fernuni-hagen.de claus-peter.klas@fernuni-hagen.de matthias.hemmje@fernuni-hagen.de
ABSTRACT As stated above we need to log all user and system ac-
This position paper supports the idea of the information tivities and the corresponding result sets within a task to
dialog between IR systems and users during an informa- catch the users context. From the experience one knows
tion search task. In order to satisfy the communication and that a search task is usually not concluded with the first
interaction needs of humans, IR systems should explicitly query. Rather a working context through the interaction is
support the cognitive abilities of the users. An information elaborated. When this understanding becomes clear, there
dialogue which does not only support an individual query must be some kind of accompanying information dialogue.
but also the complete search process is necessary. Only in A dialogue consists of a sequence of activities and results.
this way it is possible to satisfy an information need. In the past initial research ([2] and [6]) focused on the
human users not only as a part of the system but also as
an important component. In later works it was recognized
Categories and Subject Descriptors that the search is a process. In other papers (e.g. [1]) the
H.3.3 [Information Search and Retrieval]: Search Pro- search strategies and search patterns where investigated.
cess; H.3.7 [Digital Libraries]: User Issues The overall complexity of the search process was exposed
([11], [12],[17]). In [7] a continuation models of information
dialogue was introduced, to cover this search process.
General Terms The process of the related research was consistent: Start-
information retrieval, visualization, interactive systems ing from the support and improvement of individual queries,
up to a more global view of the search process and dialogue.
1. INTRODUCTION But this global view must become granular again. In order
to interpret a process or a dialog, the individual steps must
Information seeking is usually not a single step to recover a be identified and formalized within this dialog.
piece of information, but a cyclic, highly interactive process [8] identified six activities – exploration, navigation, focus,
with the aim to satisfy a specific information need. Within inspection, evaluation and store – to focus on to derive a
such a process the user builds a cognitive model, which helps context model of the user.
her to reflect and advance the search process.Within user
interfaces, it is necessary to integrate tools and functionali- 1. Exploration: The access to set of information ob-
ties within existing tools, in order to develop this cognitive jects in the form of a query and the visualization and
perception and derive a context model of the users. Require- realisation of the produced result set defines the Ex-
ments for this are logging of all user and system activities ploration. A change respectively an enlargement of
ranging from entered queries to the result sets, tools to vi- the informal context is caused by it.
sualize the context and system support based on a context
analysis. 2. Focus: The focus set represents the subset of infor-
mation objects of a result set which reach the field of
2. ASPECTS vision of the user through a visualisation and is the
result of the activity Focus
In order to support the statement of the introduction, we
would like to dwell on three aspects. 3. Navigation: The movement within a set of informa-
tion objects (information room) or between different
2.1 Logging information rooms. This causes a change of the focus.
4. Inspection: Inspection is used for the cognitive de-
termination of the state of an information object.
5. Evaluation: Evaluation gives the system a feed-
back of the user’s understanding of relevance and ap-
points the verified recall set.
SIGIR 2009 July 19-23, 2009, Boston, USA. 6. Store: This activity allows to store found documents.
Copyright 2009 ; Copyright is held by the author/owner(s). It either happens logically in form of a storage box on
the user interface or physically when a document is C:
R:
Content set
Relevance set
Projection plan
kv,total kf,total
downloaded or printed. r1 ,r2,r3: Result sets C
ki,3 ke,3 kf,3
kf,2 k rtotal
Based on these definitions we can log a dialog or the kv,2 e,2
whole search process with the system. Because some of ke,1 C
kv,1 kf,1
these acitivities correlate we can identify three interactive C r2 R
r3
modes. The user finds oneself in one of theses modes and will ke,total
r1 R
change cicular the mode. The first mode is every time access. R
Within this mode there is only one activity, Exploration. C
R
Already after the first Exploration the user changes into t3 rtotal: Context set
the second mode Orientation. Activities for this mode are t2 ke,1, ke,2,ke,3: Explored recall set
kf,1, kf,2,kf,3: Fokused recall set
Navigation, Focus and Inspection. The user is now in t1 kv,1, kv,2,kv,3: Verified recall set
the ability to change the visual as well as the informational
focal point in an information visualisation of the dialogue
context. The mode Assessment is reached, if the user finds Figure 2: Sequence of Separate Queries
objects of interest during his ispection. For this mode the
activities Evaluation and Store are available. They help
process (see figure 3). In a next step we will evaluate this
to express the users appreciation of relevance and to define
prototype.
the identified recall set.
Beside different models for information searching ([1], [13],
[5]) it was [15] who combined these approaches in a new
model. Based on idea we can enhance this model with our
activities and interactive modes (see figure 1).
Interactive Orientation
Interactive Orientation
Session n Navigation
Session 1 Navigation Focus
Inspection
Focus Access
Situational
Exploration activities
Inspection Assessment
Evaluation
Store
Access
Situational
Exploration activities
Assessment
Evaluation
Store
Figure 1: Enhanced model of Spink
Figure 3: Screenshot of a prototype
2.2 Visualization
The past research ([14], [9]) showed that information visu- 2.3 System support
alization is an important concept for the cognitive support In order to support the user during the search task, sys-
of the user. [3] said: ”‘Visual interfaces to IR systems ex- tems should be proactive ([10], [16]). To be able to actually
ploit powerful human vision and spatial cognition to help hu- support and evaluate our model we need a system which
mans mentally organize and electronically access and man- meets the following demands. The system
age large, complex information spaces. The aim is to shift
• should fundamentally support the interaction model,
the user’s mental load from slow reading to faster perceptual
processes such as visual pattern recognition.”’. • should map the described activities to support the
This statement leads us to the second aspect of our posi- user,
tion. If we understand search as a process, whose progres-
sion fills our context, then we need also support, in order to • should enable the quantitative and qualitative evalua-
understand and interpret this context. So the visualization tion of the model,
of results must go beyond the usual measure. Especially the
• and should be highly flexible and extensible to inte-
different sets of information objects shown in [7] seems to be
grate new visualisation technics.
useful to visualize (see figure 2). The user needs a portfolio
of visualization tools which approach his cognitive abilities. Following the formal description of the information di-
Furthermore, the user must be able to get the full control alogue and given the demands we want to introduce the
of his search history and the developed information context. Daffodil-system as an experimental system for further de-
By logging all activities and the sets of information objects velopment and evaluation of the above described model. It
resulting from it, we are able to get a first formal overview provides already, up to a certain extend, the demand for
of our context. mapping the user activities to existing available tools.
A first prototype is developed which visualize the differ- With the information of our context model including the
ent sets of information objects during an information search search path we identifed the following challenges:
Relevance Feedback The users implicit and explicit rel- [5] P. Ingwersen. Cognitive perspectives of information
evance assessments must be captured and related to retrieval interaction: elements of a cognitive ir theory.
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Search strategy With the help of the user or by moni-
information search process of users in libraries. Library
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& Information Science Research, 10:257–304, 1988.
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[7] P. Landwich, T. Vogel, C.-P. Klas, and M. Hemmje.
Collaborative recommendations By logging many dif- Supporting patent retrieval in the context of
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