SearchIdea: An Idea Generation Tool to Support Creativity in Academic Search

Users searching for information in academic contexts often need to compare different perspectives, organize search results, and synthesize topics. To support people’s creative thinking processes while searching for academic information, we developed SearchIdea, a Web-based online tool, that enables users to actively interact with search results beyond evaluation and selection. Through its three primary features—Search Results, SearchMapper, and IdeaMapper—SearchIdea allows users to add saved search results to SearchMapper for comparison, prioritization, and rearrangement. Using IdeaMapper, users can elicit keywords from search results, brainstorm, and organize ideas while identifying relationships among ideas.