With or without users?With or without users?

Julio GonzaloJulio Gonzalo

UNEDUNED

http://nlp.uned.eshttp://nlp.uned.es

The classical IR modelThe classical IR model

query

Relevant docs

(precise)Information

need

(fixed)Documentcollection

Query expansion

Formal models

Indexing

Clustering

Query/document comparison

Data structures

Weighting heuristics

Visualization

feedback

Filtering

Goal: all relevant information and only relevant information

Does it apply to web search?

Is Relevance what the user needs?

Most frequent questions, Infoseek 1999 (SIGIR Forum)

1. Empty question

2. sex

8. Pamela Anderson (first multiword question in the rank)

Google

No! It is quality, saliency, reliability... In one or two links

Is word frequency useful?

Pagerank addresses user needsPagerank addresses user needs

www.telecinco.es

Clasificados.wanadoo.es

Realizadores.tv

Chat.rincondelvago.com

www.horanova.es

mx.dir.yahoo.com

telecinco

telecinco

telecinc

o

telecinco

telecinco

• ¡El texto de los enlaces es el más valioso para indexar!

With or without users?With or without users?

Google’s first commandment: Focus on the Google’s first commandment: Focus on the user and all the rest will come along.user and all the rest will come along.

““With or without users?” is not the right With or without users?” is not the right questionquestion

““With or without user focus?” YESWith or without user focus?” YES

Is CLEF focusing on users?Is CLEF focusing on users? Multilingual track: If I have equivalent sets of Multilingual track: If I have equivalent sets of

relevant news in many languages, I do not want a relevant news in many languages, I do not want a merged set. I want the subset in my native merged set. I want the subset in my native language!language!

Q&A track: How much does it take to find an Q&A track: How much does it take to find an answer with an IR engine? (Ask QA assessors!!)answer with an IR engine? (Ask QA assessors!!)

Interactive track: natural user task, but artificial Interactive track: natural user task, but artificial users!users!

Only image CLEF & GIRT partially pass the testOnly image CLEF & GIRT partially pass the test Why the intersection between ECDL and CLEF is Why the intersection between ECDL and CLEF is

almost null?almost null? Multilingual web track: danger of making the same Multilingual web track: danger of making the same

pre-google mistake. pre-google mistake.

The web is truly multilingual by nature...

But the web is redundant, and average users are looking for a single perfect link!! Almost no need for cross-language users (cf Google)

Vertical search engines?Vertical search engines?

Structured data

Information need Web pages

extraction

query

ConclusionsConclusions

We need more focus on user needs...We need more focus on user needs... ... And all the rest will come along!... And all the rest will come along! Tenth Google’s commandment: great just Tenth Google’s commandment: great just

isn’t good enoughisn’t good enough