Abstract
Three studies from a text search usability program are reported. A logging study revealed the most frequent kinds of searches carried out by users. A laboratory study compared three user interface design alternatives accomodating these searches. A column layout with the logical operators AND, OR, and NOT as column headings, and which assumed parentheses by the spatial positioning of the search term, was significantly faster than the other two designs, and was also preferred by a majority of the subjects. An interview study indicated that users need a verification step prior to search submittal, and a thesaurus linked to the search term fields. There is a discussion of the limitation of each screen design and an evaluation of the methodologies used.
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