Features of a radial user interface to search engines

The paper is concerned with a new type of user interface to search engines. Instead of presenting search results in a form of a ranked list, the results are presented in radial arrangement. In the center of the interface the most relevant web page is presented. Other web pages are located around the central one. The location of a web page depends on two factors: its relevance to the query and its content. The relevance has influence on the pages´ proximity to the center and the content determines the direction in which web pages are located. The proposed interface has many features which support users in exploring search results including keywords that inform about the subjects of the web pages located in different directions. The design of the interface borrows from Self Organizing Maps (SOM), however the interface has advantages of a typical ranked list.