Is Search Broken?!

Is Search Broken?! Daniel Tunkelang Chief Scientist, Endeca

howdy!
1992: Bachelor’s + Master’s from MIT in CS + Math
1998: PhD from CMU in CS (ACO program)
1999: Co-founded Endeca!
2008: ???

overview
Who is Endeca?
Is search broken?
If it is, what can we do about it?

who / what is endeca?
Software to help people explore, analyze, and understand complex information, guiding them to unexpected insights and better decisions.
500+ customers
$108M revenue in 2007.

some of our customers

Is search broken?

Search has hit a wall.

search hits a wall in ecommerce

search hits a wall in knowledge management Current Search: it outsourcing

search even hits a wall on the web Results 1-10 out of about 344,000,000 for ir

But is search broken?

the accountants don’t think so

most users don’t think so 75

or do they?
78% wish search engines could read their minds.
What frustrates users most?
25%: deluge of results
24%: too many paid listings
19%: inability to understand their keywords
19%: disorganized / random results
The State of Search
Autobytel & Kelton Research, Oct ’07

web search vs. enterprise search
“ Search on the internet is solved. I always find what I need. But why not in the enterprise? Seems like a solution waiting to happen.”
- a Fortune 500 CTO

Can theory help?

precision = fraction of retrieved documents that are relevant recall = fraction of relevant documents that are retrieved retrieved documents relevant documents

why improve precision? the truth, nothing but the truth

why improve recall? the whole truth,

what we want… the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth

but there is a trade-off… recall precision

which should we favor? Precision …to avoid annoying users with irrelevant results? Recall …to make sure we don’t throw away results the user wants / needs?

Enough stalling…what’s the answer?!

depends on what you want vs.

you get what you pay for
There are easy use cases…
30% of queries are navigational.
30% of queries lead to Wikipedia pages.
Users won’t pay, but advertisers will!
…and hard use cases.
Queries where recall matters.
Exploratory search.
Enterprises will pay for insight.

Great, bring on the insight!

technology alone can’t provide insight
The system can’t read your mind.
Your spouse / best friend can’t read your mind.
Sometimes you can’t read your own mind.

So should we just give up?

technology is a catalyst
Computers are good at analysis.
People are good at using what they know.
How do we get the best of both worlds?

with apologies to luis von ahn

human-computer information retrieval
Instead of guessing the user’s intent, optimize communication.
De-emphasize the top ten documents; response is a set of documents.
Think beyond single queries; support refinement and exploration.

hcir cheats the trade-off recall precision

But how do we implement HCIR?

endeca's approach: guided summarization
Set retrieval that responds to queries with
an overview of the user's current context.
an organized set of options for incremental exploration.
Contextual summaries of document sets optimize system’s communication with user.
Query refinement options optimize user’s communication with system.

guided summarization for ecommerce
Matching Categories include:
Appliances > Small Appliances > Irons & Steamers
Appliances > Small Appliances > Microwaves & Steamers
Bath > Sauna & Spas > Steamers
Kitchen > Bakeware & Cookware > Cookware >
Open Stock Pots > Double Boilers & Steamers
Kitchen > Small Appliances > Steamers

guided summarization for KM

Guided summarization starts with faceted search.

facets 101

But faceted search isn’t enough…

showing the right facets: microwaves vs.

showing the right facets: ceiling fans

traditional topic taxonomy

dynamic topic facet
Subject
Electronic data processing (1002)
Distributed processing (937)
Parallel processing (619)
Computer networks (562)
Fault-tolerant-computing (365)
Show more…
Subject Artificial intelligence (227) High performance computing (244) Automatic theorem proving (9) History (11) Client/server computing (185) Information technology (145) Computer algorithms (110) Java (77) Computer architecture (162) Law and legislation (70) Computer networks (552) Logic, Symbolic and mathematical (16) Computer programs (139) Mathematics (70) Computer security (151) Mobile communication systems (54) Computer software (253) Operating systems (87) Computers (124) Parallel processing (619) Database management (277) Research (83) Distributed processing (937) Software engineering (197) Electronic data processing (1002) Supercomputers (139) Electronic digital computers (148) Web databases (54) Fault-tolerant computing (365) Wireless communication systems (97)

facets populated using entity extraction apple production

cutting through facets to show the big picture Search : storage

summarization: more than search and browse

guided summarization – a summary
Guided summarization enables a dialog
between the user and the data,
enabling exploration and discovery.

The Moral

think outside the box
Search works for many use cases.
But not for some of the most valuable ones.
Focus on human-computer information retrieval.

One More Thing

maybe we should treat search as a game

thank you
Questions?

http://findability.org	869
http://www.findability.org	307
http://www.cs.cmu.edu	200
http://thenoisychannel.blogspot.com	77
http://www.usability-onair.com	74
http://thenoisychannel.com	23
http://www.hanrss.com	9
http://supershiv.wordpress.com	9
http://reach-rich.com	8
http://www.slideshare.net	7
http://www.reach-rich.com	1
http://bookssearch.blogspot.com	1
http://semanticstudios.com	1
http://wiki.imarketingguru.com	1
http://polisci.duke.edu	1

Is Search Broken?!

by Daniel Tunkelang on Jun 02, 2008

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Is Search Broken?! — Presentation Transcript