More than the Sum of its Parts: CONTENTUS – A Semantic Multimodal Search User Interface

This paper presents the semantic search engine CONTENTUS [7] and its user interface, a multimedia retrieval system developed in the context of the German research project THESEUS1. This interface uses content-based suggestions and a multi-modal presentation of search results to support semantic search. In addition, the system deploys a combination of a facetted browsing and breadcrumb-based navigation; a time-line enables time based filtering of the search results and the system suggests related search results according to the user’s preferences. Finally, CONTENTUS has become more than the sum of its parts. Its unique feature combination facilitates search to become a more efficient and overall more pleasant user experience.