Hierarchical Structures in Attribute-based Namespaces and their Application to Browsing

Please always quote using this URN: urn:nbn:de:0297-zib-7280

While attribute-value pairs are a popular method to name objects, information retrieval from those attribute-based namespaces is not an easy task. The user has to recall correct attribute names and values and master the syntax and semantics of query formulation. This paper describes hierarchical structures in attribute-based namespaces, shows how to extract them efficiently and evaluates the quality of these structures in an user experiment. It proposes an user interface for browsing attribute-named object sets which makes this task resemble todays file-system browsers and compares the usability of this interface to normal form-based methods in an user study.

Open Access