Designing a User Interface for Interactive Retrieval of Structured Documents — Lessons Learned from the INEX Interactive Track

The interactive track of the Initiative for the Evaluation of XML retrieval (INEX) aims at collecting empirical data about user interaction behaviour and to build methods and algorithms for supporting interactive retrieval in digital library systems containing structured documents. In this paper we discuss and compare the usability aspects of the web-based user interface used in 2004 with the application based user interface implemented with the Daffodil framework in 2005. The results include a validation of the element retrieval approach, successful implementation of the berrypicking model, and that additional clues for facilitating interactive retrieval (e.g. table of contents, indication of entry points, related terms, etc.) are appreciated by users.