TY - GEN
T1 - Searching large indexes on tiny devices
T2 - 13th International Conference on Intelligent User Interfaces, IUI'09
AU - Shani, Guy
AU - Meek, Christopher
AU - Paek, Tim
AU - Thiesson, Bo
AU - Venolia, Gina
PY - 2009/9/21
Y1 - 2009/9/21
N2 - The small physical size of mobile devices imposes dramatic restrictions on the user interface (UI). With the ever increasing capacity of these devices as well as access to large online stores it becomes increasingly important to help the user select a particular item efficiently. Thus, we propose binary search with character pinning, where users can constrain their search to match selected prefix characters while making simple binary decisions about the position of their intended item in the lexicographic order. The underlying index for our method is based on a ternary search tree that is optimal under certain user-oriented constraints. To better scale to larger indexes, we analyze several heuristics that rapidly construct good trees. A user study demonstrates that our method helps users conduct rapid searches, using less keystrokes, compared to other methods.
AB - The small physical size of mobile devices imposes dramatic restrictions on the user interface (UI). With the ever increasing capacity of these devices as well as access to large online stores it becomes increasingly important to help the user select a particular item efficiently. Thus, we propose binary search with character pinning, where users can constrain their search to match selected prefix characters while making simple binary decisions about the position of their intended item in the lexicographic order. The underlying index for our method is based on a ternary search tree that is optimal under certain user-oriented constraints. To better scale to larger indexes, we analyze several heuristics that rapidly construct good trees. A user study demonstrates that our method helps users conduct rapid searches, using less keystrokes, compared to other methods.
KW - Binary Search
KW - Optimal Binary Search Tree
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=77953870245&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1145/1502650.1502687
DO - 10.1145/1502650.1502687
M3 - Conference contribution
AN - SCOPUS:77953870245
SN - 9781605581682
T3 - International Conference on Intelligent User Interfaces, Proceedings IUI
SP - 257
EP - 265
BT - Proceedingsc of the 13th International Conference on Intelligent User Interfaces, IUI'09
Y2 - 8 February 2009 through 11 February 2009
ER -