About the Cat-a-Cone
Overview
The Cat-a-Cone is a novel user interface that integrates search and
browsing of very large category hierarchies with their associated text
collections. One key insight is the separation of the representation
of category labels from documents, which allows the display of
multiple categories per document. Another key component is the
display of multiple selected categories simultaneously,
complete with their hierarchical context. The prototype
implementation uses animation and a three-dimensional graphical
workspace to accommodate the category hierarchy and to store
intermediate search results. Query specification in this 3D
environment is accomplished via a novel method for painting Boolean
queries over a combination of category labels and free text.
Xerox PARC
6/9/97