Map displays for information retrieval

The focus of this article is to develop a map display for information retrieval. Through an examination of relationships among visual displays, information retrieval, and browsing, advantages of visual displays for information retrieval are characterized as (1) the ability to convey a large amount of information in a limited space, (2) the potential to reveal semantic relationships of terms and documents, and (3) the facilitation of browsing and perceptual inferences on retrieval interfaces. These advantages are further demonstrated through a map display generated by a neural network's self-organizing algorithm. The map display detects complex relationships among given documents, and reveals the relationships through a spatial arrangement of terms abstracted from the documents. The map display also provides interactive tools to allow the user to interact with the underlying information. Examples of the map displays show that such map displays can be used both as an overview tool and an access or exploration tool, and the map displays will likely increase the amount of information that the user is willing to browse.