Research trails: getting back where you left off

In this paper, we present a prototype system that helps users in early-stage web research to create and reestablish context across fragmented work process, without requiring them to explicitly collect and organize the material they visit. The system clusters a user's web history and shows it as research trails. We present two user interaction models with the research trails. The first interaction model is implemented as a standalone application, which presents a hierarchical view of research trails. The second interaction model is integrated with the web browser. It shows the user's research trails as selectable and manipulable visual streams when they open a new tab. Thereby, the NewTab page serves as a springboard in the browser for a user resuming an ongoing task.

• Information Retrieval and the Web