Entity-Linking Interfaces In User-Contributed Content: Preference And Performance

The ability to embed links to other resources in user generated content can help authors create more useful and usable content. A variety of interfaces have emerged for entity-linking at popular online sites; such interfaces vary in the way that entity linking is initiated (in-band or out-of-band with respect to the message creation), the timing of entity resolution (interrupting or deferred), and the method of resolving the entity (auto-completion or search). Four interfaces mimicking popular entity linking websites were developed and tested. Results showed that out-of-band initiation (e.g., a link button) was faster to learn, but that in-band initiation performance improved with familiarity. Deferred search was disliked and led to worse performance. And auto-completion was generally preferred to search interfaces.