This paper presents a usability-tested interface design that enables time-constrained analysts to organize their search results in a lightweight manner during and immediately following their search sessions. The research literature suggests that users want to lay out search results spatially in overlapping “piles,” but a pilot study with a flexible canvas tool revealed that this design requires too much manipulation and has other drawbacks. This finding led to a novel hybrid design that combines structure with a flexible visual layout and which allows the analysts to quickly triage documents first and organize them later, or interweave these two processes.
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