At CHI 2007, in a workshop on exploratory search, we had a long discussion of the definition of exploratory search, during which Sue Dumais kept challenging the room to look broadly, bringing in examples and counter-examples not only from full text search, but from more structured datasets that were also fair game.
Exploratory search is just one part of HCIR; her work on adapting systems to users’ vocabulary (not vice-versa) that led to LSI, innovative search interfaces (“If in 10 years we are still using a rectangular box and a list of results, I should be fired.” ), finding and re-finding information on your personal computer, and personalization of search results all fit squarely into the HCIR space.
Those who attended the HCIR’08 workshop organized by Daniel Tunkelang (Endeca), Ryen White (MSR), and Bill Kules (CUA) got a great overview of Sue’s research. This week, during her opening keynote at SIGIR (see notes from Jeff Dalton and Jonathan Elsas, who, unlike me, were actually there!) Sue described the course of her career as an IR researcher, first at Bellcore and at Microsoft Research. In her career, she has consistently focused on the user both for inspiration for design, and for evaluating the systems.
“If you have an operational system and you don’t use what your users are doing to improve, you should have your head examined” (from Jeff Dalton)
I expect we’ll be seeing more interesting and innovative results from her group, both at SIGIR and at the HCIR workshop series.
Gene – just an editorial comment — I understand the contemporary usage of “poster child”, but I think “champion” or “paragon” or “leading light” would more clearly communicate the gist of your post, which is that Susan Dumais’ work stands as inspiration for us all. On this point I totally agree. It is good as well to see someone with a “user focus” recognized at SIGIR
You’re right, and that’s what I get for writing these things late at night. Sorry, Sue! Should I change the title?