Facilitating Network Data Exploration with Query Previews: A Study of User Performance and Preference

Current network data exploration systems which use command languages (e.g.SQL) or form fill-in interfaces fail to give users an indication of the
distribution of data items. This leads many users to waste time posing
queries which have zero-hit or mega-hit result sets. Query previewing is
a novel visual approach for browsing huge networked information
warehouses. Query previews supply data distribution information about the
database that is being searched and give continuous feedback about the
size of the result set for the query as it is being formed. Our
within-subjects empirical comparison studied 12 subjects using a form
fill-in interface with and without query previews. We found statistically
significant differences showing that query previews sped up performance
1.6 to 2.1 times and led to higher subjective satisfaction.
(Also cross-referenced as UMIACS-98-14)