Optimizing Watson Explorer Engine Platform Applications

This topic introduces some of the advanced Watson™ Explorer Engine features that can be used to optimize and securely deliver enhanced usability, responsiveness, and interactivity to the user.

Now that you have a basic big data application that provides results, you've probably got a lot of questions about ways to enhance the results in order to further provide optimized information to your users.

Understanding what you want to achieve is the most important optimization that you can perform; delivering the right application to your users will result in increased efficiency and productivity.

Optimizing how information is collected, queried, and then delivered can be a daunting task, this chapter has been segmented to discuss optimization possibilities for each step in the process. Each section describes the concepts associated with that step, and introduces some of the Watson Explorer Engine features that can be used to optimize the delivery of that step.

  • Optimizing Content - What can be found when a user is looking for information? Where does that information come from? How is information stored? Is some information more important than others? How much of that information is searchable?
  • Optimizing Processing - How does a query work? Can Watson Explorer Engine expand or correct a query? Can Watson Explorer Engine suggest queries? Who can receive which results? How can access to certain information be blocked? Can information be highlighted? How can users connect to external information stores? Can specific types of information be queried independently?
  • Optimizing Delivery - What information is returned to the user? Where is it returned? Is the information user-specific? Can the user add information? How can the user customize the information that is returned? Can the user store or export the results?
Tip: That's a lot of questions! Don't worry, subsequent sections discuss each question in the preceding list, along with the feature(s) that can be used to implement the answers. These features are optional and highly customizable, meaning if you're not interested in the answer to one of the previous questions you can skip that section, but if you are, then Watson Explorer Engine can deliver the solution.

Many of the features discussed in this chapter are related, and may depend on or enhance each other. Consider all of the questions before deciding what you need to implement.