Interfaces for Government Metasearch

Paul Thomas (CSIRO and CECS)

INFORMATION & HUMAN CENTRED COMPUTING SERIES

DATE: 2010-07-15
TIME: 16:00:00 - 17:00:00
LOCATION: CSIT Seminar Room, N101
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ABSTRACT:
Metasearch tools, which combine search results from any number of independent search engines, could be useful in a range of tasks and especially for integrating information from separate government agencies. However, it is not immediately clear what user interfaces might be appropriate for presenting results from more than one source.

This talk describes the evaluation of four interface designs with real tasks from Centrelink, Australia's social services agency, and with a working metasearch tool. Our results demonstrate that the most familiar interface options were in fact the least liked, and suggest that interface support for "gradual disclosure" is key.

BIO:
Paul is a postdoctoral fellow at CSIRO, where he studies search engines and their use.