Trajectories of Search - Mapping Scientific Frontiers: The Quest for Knowledge Visualization - page 148

Fig. 4.6 Modeling trails of information foragers in thematic spaces

example, users are likely to search widely in an information space if the query is
simple, and more focused if the query is harder ( 1995 ). According to the profitability
principle, harder queries entail higher cost to resolve and the profitability of each
document is relatively low. In general, users must decide whether or not to pursue a
given document on the course of navigation based on the likelihood profitability of
the document.
In order to study sequential patterns in users' trails, we decided to visualize doc-
uments visited by users in sequence. One would expect that the trail of a successful
information forager should lead to the target area and spend a considerable amount
of time in that area. The success of one user may provide insightful information to
another user to overcome the weakest link problem.

4.1.4 Modeling a Foraging Process

We introduce a theoretical framework to accommodate the optimal information
foraging theory and modeling and visualization techniques. Figure 4.6 shows
the structure of this framework. First, the framework includes the design of