Tech Report HCIL-2009-20
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Wongsuphasawat, K., Plaisant, C., Shneiderman, B. (October 2009) Specifying event sequence queries is challenging even for skilled computer professionals familiar with SQL. Most graphical user interfaces for database search use a query-by-filters approach, which is often effective, but applies an exact match criteria. We describe a new query-by-example interface, in which users specify a pattern by simply placing events on a blank timeline, producing a similarity-ranked list of results. Users customize the similarity measure by four decision criteria, enabling them to reduce the impact of missing, extra, or swapped events or the impact of time shifts. We describe an example of use with electronic health records based on our ongoing collaboration with hospital physicians. Then we report on a controlled experiment with 18 participants that compared query-by-filters and query-by-example features. We report on the advantages and disadvantages of each approach and conclude with recommendations for the design of a hybrid approach combining both interfaces. 
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