Semantic lenses: Seamless augmentation of web pages with context information from implicit queries

We propose a novel method to support analytical processes by visually integrating context information directly into web pages. The context information is obtained from knowledge bases or services that provide additional information about certain concepts and instances of a knowledge domain. The approach performs implicit queries on the underlying information sources using the key phrases of the web page and visually presents the results to the user in a seamless way. The technique aims at improving the integration of different information sources into the user's task. The method has two phases, an augmentation and an interaction phase. In the augmentation phase, for each key phrase the availability of additional context information is checked. All phrases for which context information is available are highlighted by adding special markups and scripts to the web page. In the interaction phase, the user can click on a highlighted phrase to receive the associated context information. The information is displayed directly in the web page in an overlay that we call a semantic lens.