HELIX SEARCH INTERFACE FOR FASTER BROWSING

Maintaining search context within a series of searches while preserving screen real estate on a computing device leads to improvements in the functionality of those computing devices and improves the user experience thereon. A helical navigation structure allows users to navigate back and forth in a search session to maintain a prior search's context to keep searches consistent while refining the search without sacrificing real estate on the display device or having to start new search sessions. New categories or subcategories that the user can explore replace search elements that handle less-refined search levels, and when a search element associated with a content item is selected, the user is provided a new interface to choose whether to explore that content or continue refining the search.