Design for Interaction

© 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!


about endeca

250M+ end users

per month

250M+ end users

per month600+ customers

$100M+ annual sales

leading provider ofsearch applications


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


overview

don't put all your eggs in one basket


human-computer information retrieval


don’t put all your eggs in one basket

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


the db approach: perfection in, perfection out

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


db usability researchers recognize the pain


sql is hard

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

• labor-intensive query construction

• lengthy query evaluation

• high query reformulation cost

__sql


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!


the ir way: don’t worry, be happy

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


ir for db people: what would google do?

information Need query select from results

rank using IR model

USER:

SYSTEM:tf-idf PageRank


assumptions of relevance-centric ir approach

• self-awareness

• self-expression

• model knows best

• answer is a document

• one-shot query


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?



The Future of Social Interaction by Jim Stoten


changes assumptions about what to optimize

recall

pre

cis

ion

complexity relevance

communication


how do we optimize communication?

transparency

control

guidance


ir offers a black box

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


db / set retrieval offers 2 out of 3

transparency

control

guidance


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?


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


great idea

how?


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


expose the facets of semistructured content


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.


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


what is semistructured data?

• one universe

• self-describing

• blends data / meta-data


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


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, …


but let’s make this concrete

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

book about databases!


quick, to the goog-mobile!

not quite…


i know, i’ll go to the library!

#%@$!


let’s try a little hcir…


hcir works for news too


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


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


users want the triumvirate

• transparency• control• guidance

transparency and control are easy

guidance requires cleverness


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


thank you…and come to SIGIR!

communication 1.0email: [email protected]

communication 2.0blog: http://thenoisychannel.com

twitter: http://twitter.com/dtunkelang

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

Design for Interaction

Technology

Transcript of Design for Interaction