Approaching Humanities Questions Using Slow Visual Search Interfaces

Abstract

In this paper we discuss a visual search system that was designed and implemented for humanities scholars to ask questions of large document corpora. The system allows searches to be specified through traditional search, as well as through providing reference documents or visually exploring a semantic ontology for terms of interest. We offer a discussion of using visualization to try to answer humanities questions and take an honest look at the difficulties of using a methodology of one discipline to solve the problems of another.