using examples to describe categories
The successful use of menu-based information retrieval systems depends critically on users understanding the category names and partitions used by system designers. Some of the problems in this endeavor are psychological and have to do with naming large and ill-defined categories so that users can understand their contents, and effectively partitioning large sets of objects. Systems of interest (like home information systems) often consist of new and frequently changing content in large and varied domains, and are particularly prone to these problems. We explored several ways in which one might name categories in one such domain (Yellow Page category headings) - category names, category names plus examples, and examples alone. We found that three examples alone were essentially as good a way to name these categories as either an expertly chosen name or a name plus examples. Examples provide a promising possibility both as a means of flexibly naming menu categories and as a methodological tool to study certain categorization problems.
use examples categorical information retrieval systems users understandability partition contention object home information system domain paging methodology tool