Abstract

This chapter describes the design, development and testing of one component of a system for creating generally applicable, data-driven sitemap tools and information retrieval applications. This category of software tools are used to enhance information seeking on the web. Such tools are set up by web site administrators who want to provide visitors with alternative browsing and navigation aids. The Generalized Relation Browser, or GRB, illustrates the look-ahead strategy for web navigation within the Agileviews framework. Agileviews define control mechanisms and interfaces for overviews, previews, reviews, peripheral views, and shared views intended to help people make better decisions while seeking information on the Internet. Within this framework, the overall goal of the GRB is to help users to gain a better understanding of collections of online resources by providing them with a kind of sitemap. The GRB is the follow-on to the Federal Statistics Relation Browser prototype, which focused on the US Government Fedstats collection of web sites, providing users a more dynamic and informative browsing alternative to the static sitemap.

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