Empowering Users for Improved Database Access and Analysis Through the Application of Knowledge Structure Views, Progressive Refinement Techniques and a Design Approach Driven by Usability

An approach to accessing databases, which makes extensive use of structured thesaurus views for presenting and searching a large bibliographic database through progressive refinement, is being investigated in a research project which is seeking to apply usability criteria as the determinant for interface design. It aims to investigate measurements of retrieval performance in an application of graphical user interface techniques using multi-windowed layered attribute value aggregation, including those provided by a structured thesaurus, to access bibliographic databases. This paper reports on progress made in the first year of the project in respect of the application of usability methodologies, the revision of a preliminary design and the resulting prototype development. Implications for more widespread application are discussed.