TECHNICAL FIELD

The present invention relates generally to searching for information, and more particularly to visualizing query results to improve the quality of subsequent searches.

BACKGROUND

Oftentimes, people perform keyword searches to identify information, such as performing a keyword search on a web search engine (e.g., Google®) to search for information on the World Wide Web. Often, these keyword searches involve entering one or more terms of interest (e.g., weather, Detroit) directed to a subject of interest, such as the weather in the city of Detroit. The search results are generated simply based on the term(s) entered by the user, where the results are typically those that include one or more of the terms entered by the user.

At times though, the user may have more of an interest in the differences in the search results between a prior search and a current search which involved different term(s). For example, the user may have entered the terms of “car” and “accident” in a first search and the terms “motorcycle” and “accident” in a second search. The user may be more interested in the differences in the search results between these searches rather than simply being provided the results of the second search.

Currently, the user is required to enter terms without prior knowledge of how these terms relate to the current search result. That is, the user does not have knowledge as to how each of these terms will have an impact on the search result.

As a result, the user does not currently have an intuitive view of how different terms or different searches will have an impact on the search results.

SUMMARY

In one embodiment of the present invention, a computer-implemented method for improving the quality of subsequent searches comprises receiving a request from a user to perform a first search using one or more terms provided by the user. The method further comprises performing the first search using the one or more terms provided by the user. The method additionally comprises depicting a first representation of a first search result of the first search as a first area with terms of interest displayed outside the first area, where the first area comprises a bubble or a circle, and where the terms of interest comprise one or more of the following: correlated terms in connection with the first search result, high frequency terms in connection with the first search result, synonyms of the one or more provided terms and facet values.

Other forms of the embodiment of the method described above are in a system and in a computer program product.

The foregoing has outlined rather generally the features and technical advantages of one or more embodiments of the present invention in order that the detailed description of the present invention that follows may be better understood. Additional features and advantages of the present invention will be described hereinafter which may form the subject of the claims of the present invention.

