MCS Filters to Express Partial Satisfaction of Criteria

Abstract

This paper describes a new graphical component called Multidimensional Concentric Sliders (MCS) to visually build Boolean conjunctive queries for numerical attributes. The main originality consists in allowing the user to impose a strict observance for some criteria as well as to offer options to be more tolerant for others. The component uses color coding to visualize groups of elements that approximately satisfy the query criteria to a similar degree (e.g. full satisfaction of all criteria, near-misses, not acceptable at all). The paper discusses both the concepts and a prototypal implementation.