INTERACTIVE DOCUMENT DISPLAY AND ITS USE IN INFORMATION RETRIEVAL

Computers with graphics screens and pointing devices such as the ‘mouse’ provide the opportunity for highly interactive user interfaces. This paper describes some novel software for displaying documents on graphics screens: the software provides a fast and simple way for users to peruse documents and to examine the parts that interest them. One application of the software is as a front end to a document retrieval system, since it provides a way for users to identify quickly the records that are of relevance to them and to provide feedback between the user and the underlying retrieval system.