The FindMe Approach to Assisted Browsing

While the explosion of on-line information has brought new opportunities for finding and using electronic data, it has also brought to the forefront the problem of isolating useful information and making sense of large multidimensional information spaces. In response to this problem, we have developed an approach to building data "tour guides," called FindMe systems. These programs know enough about an information space to be able to help a user navigate through it, making sure that the user not only comes away with items of useful information but also insights into the structure of the information space itself. In these systems, we have combined ideas of instance-based browsing, structuring retrieval around the critiquing of previously retrieved examples; and retrieval strategies, knowledgebased heuristics for finding relevant information. We illustrate these techniques with examples of working FindMe systems, and describe the similarities and differences between them. 1 Introduction..