Relations between slips and relations between keywords are established via
information scents:
- There exists an information scent – a slip scent –
from one slip to another another one if the two slips share at least one keyword.
The more keywords are shared by the slips the stronger the scent.
- There exists an information scent – a keyword scent –
between two keywords if there is at least one slip on which they occur together.
The more slips the keywords co-occur on the stronger the scent.
Scents can be used for the associative searches in the box. They guide the
exploration of the box in two ways:
- They lead from one slip to a related one, eg by the Slip Scents table in
the Slip View.
- They lead from one keyword to new keywords, eg by the Keyword
Scent View browser.
Aside: The relations shown in the Alternating
Scent View are not, strictly speaking, scents, because they show the
relations between slip IDs and keywords. This view is just a convenience.