Drag-and-Drop Query Refinement and Query History Visualization for Mobile Exploratory Search

Conducting exploratory searches within digital libraries requires that searchers revise, refine, and reformulate their queries multiple times. Challenges that searchers of digital public libraries face include choosing how to refine their queries and making spelling or typographical errors. These are compounded when using mobile devices, where typing is time-consuming and error-prone. Conducting searches in a mobile context adds yet another challenge: the possibility of being interrupted and losing track of what was being done. In this paper we demonstrate a novel digital public library search interface tuned for mobile device use, which was designed to address these challenges through two key features: drag-and-drop query refinement and query history visualization. This work represents an example of how thoughtful search interface design and the judicious use of visualization techniques can be used to enhance exploratory search processes within digital public libraries.