"Google by reformulation": modeling search as successive refinement

Humans naturally employ a process of iterative refinement when they search for information, clarifying their intentions and adjusting their goals in response to what they encounter. We propose to develop tools specifically to facilitate this process, and hypothesize that they will help users converge on their desired information more quickly. This work presents a layered extension to the Google Web search interface that illustrates the so-called "retrieval by reformulation" paradigm. The tool will serve as a launching point to a wider field of inquiry into user interaction with large information spaces.