The Google Toolbar also provides a similar UI, Bernard. Have you used it?
As you type into the search box, it shows a list of words beginning with the text you've typed. It's nice in that the list of keywords is updated as you type each character (well, asynchronously, actually, but pretty fast). It's quite different to the experience of searching and getting "did you mean X"? Or just having the search engine ASSUME that you meant X.
Con
-----Original Message-----
From: Next generation catalogs for libraries on behalf of Bernhard Eversberg
Sent: Tue 07/08/07 21:11
To: NGC4LIB_at_listserv.nd.edu
Subject: Re: [NGC4LIB] Spell checking (was "Elitism - and Aristotle again!")
Dan Scott wrote:
>
> I think we can work towards a UI experience for spell-checking in
> catalogues that is biased towards precision, but enables the user to
> quickly expand recall via spell-checking and thesaurus capabilities in
> a helpful (that is, offer no suggestions that lead to zero hits) and
> progressively disclosed (that is, leave the user in control of the
> search session) manner.
>
Spell-checking can hardly be made quite as useful for
catalogs as it is being experienced with search engines.
It may even be counterproductive to employ spell-checking, with
no way for the user to figure out what's going on.
Lots better: provide index browsing not just for controlled vocabulary
but for title keywords as well. Then, users can immediately _see_
what spellings there are and also what variants and mistakes, and also
what's not there at all. It is even possible to make this kind of index
truncatable! Here's a sample:
User types "pharmaceutic" and gets
pharmaceutic (3)
pharmaceutica (115)
pharmaceuticae (30)
pharmaceutical (1926)
pharmaceutical-biotechnology
pharmaceutical/biomedical
pharmaceutically (4)
pharmaceuticals (275)
pharmaceuticam (12)
pharmaceuticarum (20)
pharmaceuticas (4)
pharmaceutice (24)
pharmaceuticen
pharmaceutices (14)
pharmaceutici (9)
pharmaceuticial
pharmaceuticis (45)
pharmaceutick
...
Now, user truncates that typing pharmaceutic? and gets
pharmaceutic... (2699)
pharmaceutik... (9)
pharmaceutin...
pharmaceutiq... (319)
pharmaceutis... (362)
pharmaceuto-... (2)
pharmaceutri... (3)
pharmaceutuc...
pharmacevtic... (11)
pharmacevtik...
pharmacevtiq...
pharmacevtis... (4)
pharmaceytis... (2)
pharmachem...
pharmachopoi...
pharmacia... (169)
pharmacia-ca...
pharmaciae... (36)
Examples are from a database of 15 mio titles in many languages, the
keyword index alone holding over 100 mio entries.
Try it out here to get a feeling:
http://www.biblio.tu-bs.de/db/vk/page.php?urG=TIT&urS=pharmaceut
B.Eversberg
Received on Tue Aug 07 2007 - 03:36:03 EDT