The user interface in text retrieval systems: a letter to the editor

As Landauer has pointed out [1995] Boolean searches often are not an optimal form of target specification for text retrieval (that they are widely used is insufficient reason to promote them). Rather than presenting a list of documents as the result of a search, text retrieval can generally be improved by presenting the user with each found instance as it is found. Such a search can proceed while the user is inspecting the instance just found, making the system seem much faster [Raskin, 1989]. An interactive, incremental search is often preferable to either of the two kinds of dialogs Drori discusses because each instance found gives feedback on the appropriateness of the search key while it is being developed, saving the user t ime and frustration. I have found that users tend to prefer an incremental search (e.g. that o f the EMACS