Evaluation of an interactive topic detection and tracking interface

摘要

Interactive Topic Detection and Tracking (iTDT) refers to the TDT works which focus on user interaction, user evaluation and user interfaces aspects. This article investigates and identifies elements of the design of an interface that aims to facilitate journalists performing TDT tasks such as tracking and detection. It presents an (iTDT) interface called Interactive Event Tracking (iEvent), and evaluates the usability of the features introduced. The findings indicate the features that facilitated the participants in performing both tasks: cluster labelling and top terms features in Cluster View, a histogram with the timeline and document content features in Document View, and a keyword approach feature in Term View. Meanwhile, features such as cluster visualisation in Cluster View and histogram with the timeline in Term View only facilitated participants during the tracking task. The study shows that the interface enables journalists to perform well in TDT tasks.