Sentiment Visualisation Widgets for Exploratory Search

This paper proposes the usage of visualisation widgets for exploratory search with sentiment as a facet. Starting from specific design goals for depiction of ambivalence in sentiment, two visualization widgets were implemented: scatter plot and parallel coordinates. Those widgets were evaluated against a text baseline in a small-scale usability study with exploratory tasks using Wikipedia as dataset. The study results indicate that users spend more time browsing with scatter plots in a positive way. A post-hoc analysis of individual differences in behavior revealed that when considering two types of users, explorers and achievers, engagement with scatter plots is positive and significantly greater when users are explorers. We discuss the implications of these findings for sentimentbased exploratory search and personalised user interfaces.