Dynamic query

Dynamic queries continuously update the data that is filtered from the database and visualized. They work instantly within a few milliseconds as users adjusts sliders or select buttons to form simple queries or to find patterns or exceptions; the dynamic–query approach thus applies the principles of direct manipulation to the database. [Shneiderman, 1994]

an interface in which a continuous manual adjustment of one or more data values results responsively (e.g. well within one second) in a visual representation of some function(s) of those data values.

[Spence, 2007]

An interface that allows dynamic queries has these properties (according to C. Williamson und B. Shneiderman [Williamson and Shneiderman, 1992]):

• Graphical representation of the request
• the graphical visualisation of the database and searching results
• delivers results immediately when several parameters are changed
• visualizes result borders (min-max)
• allows beginners a faster entrance without having much practice, and still offers experts some mighty functions

Related Pages

• HomeFinder

External Links

Range Slider Flash demo by Samuel Wan

References

• [Shneiderman, 1994]: Shneiderman, Ben, Dynamic Queries for Visual Information Seeking, in IEEE Software, 11(6): 70-77, 1994.
• [Spence, 2007] Robert Spence, Information Visualization - Design for Interaction, 2nd Edition, Pearson Education Limited, Essex, UK, 2007, p. 235.
• [Williamson and Shneiderman, 1992] C. Williamson, B. Shneiderman. The Dynamic HomeFinder: Evaluating Dynamic Queries in a Real-Estate Information Exploration System. In Proceedings of the 15th Annual International ACM SIGIR Conference on Research and Development in Information Retrieval, pages 339 – 346, Copenhagen, Denmark, June 21-24, ACM, 1992.