Visualization and exploration of texts. A theoretical framework and two practical approaches for improvement of digital libraries and information retrieval systems

Abstract

This research project aims to improve the way humans work with textual documents
when doing tasks such as exploring, discovering, searching, filtering, collecting, indexing,
comparing, or just reading. This research project studies theoretical foundations and
practical uses of text visualization techniques. As a contribution to theory, the research
project presents a classification schema for text visualization approaches based on visual
features instead of task-solving capabilities (Paper I). As a contribution to practice, how
to improve interfaces of digital libraries (DL) has been studied. Two practical proposals
for approaching text are introduced: one for single text representation, called Texty
(Paper II), and another for text collections exploration and overview, called Area (Paper
III). This research project discusses the contrast between the growing popularity of text
visualization, presented as a subfield of data visualization, and the lack and urgency,
nowadays, of interactive and visual interfaces to DL