Search result visualization with characters for children

Abstract

In this paper, we explore alternative ways to visualize search results for children. We propose a novel search result visualization using characters. The main idea is to represent each web document as a character where a character visually provides clues about the webpage's content. We focused on children between six and twelve as a target user group. Following the usercentered development approach, we conducted a preliminary user study to determine how children would represent a webpage as a sketch based on a given template of a character. Using the study results the first prototype of a search engine was developed. We evaluated the search interface on a touchpad and a touch table in a second user study and analyzed user's satisfaction and preferences.