Interactive Data Visualization for Product Search.

In complex search scenarios such as planning a vacation or finding a suitable gift for a friend, at the beginning the user usually does not know exactly what he is looking for. However, this is the question that most search interfaces present as first step. This research aims to analyze approaches for supporting the user in expressing a search query based on vague motives and ideas and in evaluating the search results in order to find a suitable search result. Various visualization techniques and prototypes are developed to support different stages of the search process and lead to a construction kit for visual search interfaces.