Information retrieval from hypertext using dynamically planned guided tours

In using any hypertext system a user will encounter many technical problems which have been well-documented in the literature. Two of the more serious problems with using hypertext are user disorientation and the retrieval of information. Another less often addressed problem is that of the logical sequencing of nodes. In the work reported in this paper we address these three problems by combining Hammond and Allinson’s guided tour metaphor and Frisse’s information retrieval techniques to dynamically create guided tours for users in direct response to a user’s query. One of the features of our method is that we take advantage of typing of information links in the hypertext to generate a tour which has a judicious sequencing of nodes rather than a simple presentation of hypertext nodes in order of similarity to the user’s query. Our method was empirically tested on a population of 125 users who generated a total 973 individual tours and all user actions and responses to questions were logged. The results of this evaluation are presented in this paper. Acknowledgement: CG would like to acknowledge the support of Telecom Eireann and the Irish-American partnership Scholars program for supporting her in this research. All correspondence regarding this work should be addressed to AFS. Permission to copy without fee all or part of this material is granted provided that copies are not made or distributed for direct co-ercial advantage, the ACM copyright notice and the title of the publication and its date appear, and notice is given that copying is by permission of the Association for Computing Machinery. To copy otherwise, or to republish, requires a fee and/or specific permission. @1992 ACM O-89791-547-X/92/0011 /0122/ $1.50