Adaptive visualization of search results: Bringing user models to visual analytics

Received: 18 March 2009 Revised: 18 March 2009 Accepted: 20 April 2009 Abstract Adaptive visualization is a new approach at the crossroads of user modeling and information visualization. Taking into account information about a user, adaptive visualization attempts to provide user-adapted visual presentation of information. This paper proposes Adaptive VIBE, an approach for adaptive visualization of search results in an intelligence analysis context. Adaptive VIBE extends the popular VIBE visualization framework by infusing user model terms as reference points for spatial document arrangement and manipulation. We explored the value of the proposed approach using data obtained from a user study. The result demonstrated that user modeling and spatial visualization technologies are able to reinforce each other, creating an enhanced level of user support. Spatial visualization amplifies the user model's ability to separate relevant and non-relevant documents, whereas user modeling adds valuable reference points to relevance-based spatial visualization. Information Visualization (2009) 8, 167--179. doi:10.1057/ivs.2009.12