© 2009 Endeca Technologies, Inc. All rights reserved.

design for interaction

Daniel TunkelangChief Scientist, Endeca

© 2009 Endeca Technologies, Inc. All rights reserved.2

about me

Organizing SIGIR ’09 Industry Track in Boston on July 22nd!

© 2009 Endeca Technologies, Inc. All rights reserved.3

about endeca

250M+ end users

per month

250M+ end users

per month600+ customers

$100M+ annual sales

leading provider ofsearch applications

© 2009 Endeca Technologies, Inc. All rights reserved.4

what i hope you learn from this talk

the db and ir perspectives have a common thread

convergence may be upon us

but we need interaction to make it work

© 2009 Endeca Technologies, Inc. All rights reserved.5

overview

don't put all your eggs in one basket

design for interaction

human-computer information retrieval

© 2009 Endeca Technologies, Inc. All rights reserved.6

don’t put all your eggs in one basket

Still Life with Basket and Broken Eggs by Michael Edwards, 2008

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the db approach: perfection in, perfection out

http://www.storeitfoodsblog.com/category/food-preparation/meat-grinder/

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db usability researchers recognize the pain

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sql is hard

Making Database Systems Usable[Jagadish et al., SIGMOD 2007]

• labor-intensive query construction

• lengthy query evaluation

• high query reformulation cost

__sql

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data sucks and users are lazy

Extracting Problems for Databaseand IR Researchers[Naughton, Spring 2008 North East DB/IR Day]

• real data is– incomplete– inconsistent– incorrect

• users don’t want to learn– data schemas– structured query languages we’re not gonna take it!

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the ir way: don’t worry, be happy

http://adsoftheworld.com/media/print/mcdonalds_burger_mysteries

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ir for db people: what would google do?

information Need query select from results

rank using IR model

USER:

SYSTEM:tf-idf PageRank

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assumptions of relevance-centric ir approach

• self-awareness

• self-expression

• model knows best

• answer is a document

• one-shot query

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life is not a batch

• db approach expects too much of user• ir approach expects too much of system

both approaches act as if it allcomes down to a single query

is that your final answer question?

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design for interaction

The Future of Social Interaction by Jim Stoten

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changes assumptions about what to optimize

recall

pre

cis

ion

complexity relevance

communication

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how do we optimize communication?

transparency

control

guidance

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ir offers a black box

ca c'est la caisse. le mouton que tu veux est dedans.

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db / set retrieval offers 2 out of 3

transparency

control

guidance

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but we need it all!

• set retrieval is a failure in the ir world– though quite successful in the db world!

• but ranked retrieval is inherently crippled– no transparency, control, or guidance!

how do we optimize for communication?

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human-computer information retrieval

• don’t just guess the user’s intent• increase user responsibility and control• require and reward human intellectual effort

“Toward Human-Computer Information Retrieval”

Gary Marchionini

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great idea

how?

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treat query construction as a process

A Case for Interaction[Koenemann and Belkin, 1996]

• used term feedback to improve alerting queries

• users select from suggested terms

• 17 – 34% improvement in precision @ 30

• users liked the feedback interface

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expose the facets of semistructured content

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success in the lab and the field

• favored in user studies by Marti Hearst– http://flamenco.berkeley.edu/

• ubiquitous in ecommerce– amazon.com– eBay– endeca powers 42 of top 100 online retailers

• taking over media, libraries, enterprise, etc.

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even a few db folks have drunk the kool-aid

DataGuides[Goldman and Widom, VLDB 1997]

• user-friendly schema summaries

Magnet[Sinha and Karger, SIGMOD 2005]

• navigation and refinement options

common theme: semistructured

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what is semistructured data?

• one universe

• self-describing

• blends data / meta-data

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data modeling flexibility

• no a-priori schema– integrated sources without up-front schema design

• richer modeling capabilities tame data complexity– hierarchy, multi-valued fields, sparse fields

• schema flexibility eases schema evolution– new entity types, new data source

Databases Content ManagementERP

Groupware and Collaboration

WWW Internet

SOA, ESB,Web ServiceFile Systems

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semantically direct queries

<shirt><sku>1234</sku><sleeve>Long</sleeve><desc>Classic end-on-end shirt</desc><price>39.99</price><salePrice>29.99</salePrice><color>Blue</color><color>Yellow</color><color>White</color>...

</shirt> <trousers><sku>1579</sku><price>59.99</price><color>Khaki</color>...

</trousers>

which on-sale itemsare available in blue?

<buyingGuide><title>Selecting the right ski coat for you.</title><file>skiguide.pdf</file><keyword>ski</keyword><keyword>coat</keyword>...

</buyingGuide>

which attributescharacterize on-saleblue items?

price, sleeve,color, salePrice,brand, fabric, …

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but let’s make this concrete

Uh oh, I’m presenting atSIGMOD! Better find a good

book about databases!

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quick, to the goog-mobile!

not quite…

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i know, i’ll go to the library!

#%@$!

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let’s try a little hcir…

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hcir works for news too

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life in a semistructured world

• search is a great starting point– users can’t / won’t initiate structured queries

• ranked lists are an inadequate ending point– search queries are lossy projections of intent

• hcir leads users down a garden path to structure

© 2009 Endeca Technologies, Inc. All rights reserved.36

lots of trade-offs

“everything should be made as simple as possible, but no simpler”

“speed of thought” vs. “going nowhere quickly”

“to err is human, but to really foul things up requires a computer”

simple interfaces don’talways yield satisfaction

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users want the triumvirate

• transparency• control• guidance

transparency and control are easy

guidance requires cleverness

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in closing

all of us want to help people access information

the best help is to help them help themselves

design for interaction thoughtransparency, control, guidance

© 2009 Endeca Technologies, Inc. All rights reserved.39

thank you…and come to SIGIR!

communication 1.0email: dt@endeca.com

communication 2.0blog: http://thenoisychannel.com

twitter: http://twitter.com/dtunkelang

SIGIR: July 19-23 in Boston Industry Track on July 22nd!