A visual approach to query formulation for systematic search

Abstract

Knowledge workers (such as healthcare information professionals, patent agents and legal researchers) need to create and execute search strategies that are accurate, repeatable and transparent. The traditional solution offered by most database vendors is to use proprietary line-by-line 'query builders'. However, these offer limited support for error checking or query optimisation, and their output can often be compromised by errors and inefficiencies. Using the healthcare domain for context, we demonstrate a new approach to search strategy formulation in which concepts are expressed as objects on a two-dimensional canvas, and relationships are articulated using direct manipulation. This approach eliminates many sources of syntactic error, makes the query semantics more transparent, and offers new ways to optimise, save and share search strategies and best practices.