RankSpiral: Toward Enhancing Search Results Visualizations

Abstract

This paper addresses the problem of how to enable users to visually explore and compare large sets of documents that have been retrieved by different search engines or queries. The Rank-Spiral enables users to rapidly scan large numbers of documents and their titles in a single screen. It uses a spiral mapping that maximizes information density and minimizes occlusions. It solves the labeling problem by exploiting the structure of the special spiral mapping used. Focus+Context interactions enable users to examine document clusters or groupings in more detail.