A GRAPHICAL FILTER FLOW REPRESENTATION OF BOOLEAN QUERIES - A PROTOTYPE IMPLEMENTATION AND EVALUATION

One of the powerful applications of Boolean expression is to allow use rs to extract relevant information from a database. Unfortunately, pre vious research has shown that users have difficulty specifying Boolean queries. In an attempt to overcome this limitation, a graphical Filte r/Flow representation of Boolean queries was designed to provide users with an interface that visually conveys the meaning of the Boolean op erators (AND, OR, and NOT). This was accomplished by implementing a gr aphical interface prototype that uses the metaphor of water flowing th rough filters. Twenty subjects having no experience with Boolean logic participated in an experiment comparing the Boolean operations repres ented in the Filter/Flow interface with a text-only SOL interface. The subjects independently performed five comprehension tasks and five co mposition tasks in each of the interfaces. A significant difference (p < 0.05) in the total number of correct queries in each of the compreh ension and composition tasks was found favoring Filter/Flow.