Application of keyword map to decision support through exploratory search

This paper examines users behavior in decision making through exploratory search on a keyword map. The keyword map is a kind of interactive information visualization system, which displays relationships between objects (keywords). The system has been studied for analyzing data. The keyword map has a multiple relevance controller for analyzing relationship between keywords, which is represented by multiple attributes, from various viewpoints. A user can adjust weights of attributes according to his/her interest, using the controller. We expect that the keyword map can support compensatory/non-compensatory decision strategies by the multiple relevance controller. We perform an experiment for confirming user´s behavior during exploratory search on the keyword map. Experimental result shows a user operates flexibly the multiple relevance controller according to his/her decision strategies.