Smeagol: A "Specific-to-General" Semantic Web Query Interface Paradigm for Novices [chapter]

Aaron Clemmer, Stephen Davies
2011 Lecture Notes in Computer Science  
Most Semantic Web query interfaces let the user give an abstract specification of the desired results (perhaps using facets, or a natural language query.) We introduce the Smeagol visual query interface which, by contrast, guides the user from a specific example to a general result set. Users begin the query process with navigation and exploration activities, building a concrete subgraph of interest from the larger data set. They then generalize this subgraph to find other subgraphs similar in
more » ... ome way to the one identified. Among other advantages, this approach also lends itself quite naturally to querying on instance-based data; i.e., triples in which the predicate is not part of a defined ontology. We provide an analysis of this specific-to-general approach, contrasting it with existing systems. We also present the results of a usability experiment comparing novices' use of Smeagol with that of a standard Linked Data browser.
doi:10.1007/978-3-642-23088-2_21 fatcat:4ljhcddx6rauvon2khgtpcyzwa