A Generous Interface for the Discoverability of Text Collections

Abstract

Existing search interfaces for digital collections are excellent for finding specific items, but are unfriendly to inexperienced users, fail to facilitate exploration, and do not highlight the internal relationships and structures within a collection. Generous interfaces have been theorized as an alternative to search-centric information retrieval, and have begun to be implemented in a limited number of digital cultural institutions. However, there are almost no examples of generous interfaces for text-based collections, a significant omission. In this thesis, I propose and implement an experimental interface to explore a collection of nearly 50,000 theses sourced from MIT’s DSpace collection: a “spatial search” where content is mapped onto a two-dimensional virtual space that enables users to search by “moving” rather than through queries. I then use an experiment to evaluate the interface against a traditional search interface, and find consistent evidence that the interface improves exploration, quality of items found, and user engagement when participants are asked to freely explore.