Presentation

Much time was spent in discussing just how ENQUIRE's complex functionality might be presented to first time users. The designers did not want to rely on extensive on-line help, but needed to get across ideas about building up a query using terms from various sources to naive users, or those already more familiar with boolean searching. A particular issue was how to present the thesaurus so that users could understand why it was there and feel encouraged to use it.

It was agreed that the interface should consist of a single window containing separate ``panes'' or functional areas. Some ideas which were proposed included having expanding and contracting panes depending on the task and quantity of information to be displayed, and having panes which could be closed or minimised when not needed. The one finally adopted involved some overlaying of panes --- for example when thesaurus navigation was selected the thesaurus pane would overlay the document display pane. This reduced the number of panes on display at any time, and hence the complexity of the interface.

Within this framework, the important presentational issues were:

• The positioning of the various functional areas to show their relationship to one another. Panes containing lists of terms go on the left of the window, those containing lists of documents go on the right.

• The ordering of list items within those areas. For example both terms and documents are always displayed in weight order.

• The selection of appropriate fonts and colours. Colour coding is used in a consistent way to convey meaning; for example terms making up the current query are colour-coded according to their original source.

• The wording and positioning of headings and other messages. For example, the document hitlist is partitioned into areas with messages indicating their degree of match with the query.

A full description of all the interface areas and their functions is given below in section 3.6.