Algorithms on Harlan D. Harris

GeneralIZE -- How else could IZE's hierarchies be generated?

harlan.harris@gmail.com (Harlan Harris) — Tue, 17 Mar 2026 00:00:00 +0000

In previous posts, I showed off an interactive demo of the IZE algorithm, and discussed how the algorithm worked. Now, it's worth considering some ways we could generalIZE the algorithm. 🤦‍♂️ Perhaps variations on the algorithm might yield hierarchies that are even better at showcasing the contents of the texts?

As discussed previously, there's pretty good experimental evidence that in order to be useful and intuitive, search results clustering needs to be based on just one or two words (or facet values, or tags). That is, it's too confusing when the algorithm finds clusters based on overall family resemblance, then tries to name them post-hoc. It's better to do the sort of single-word splitting that the IZE algorithm uses. But, could we do so in a different way or a different order, so that the results feel more like underlying clusters are being identified?

Post Query Refinement Suggestions in Search UX, and an Algolia Demo App

harlan.harris@gmail.com (Harlan Harris) — Fri, 23 Jan 2026 00:00:00 +0000

What are Post-Query Refinement Suggestions?

One of my favorite search UX patterns is post-query refinement suggestions — buttons that appear between the search box and results, adjusting the query in various ways. See, for instance, these suggestions on Etsy, which recommend that I filter by shipping speed, seller type, cost range, style, etc.

Filter Suggestions on Etsy

PQRS is a mouthful of an abbreviation, but most of what I've seen as alternatives either describes the UI element ("refinement pills") rather than the function, or is excessively vague ("guided search"). So PQRSs it is, sorry.

New Publications and Upcoming Talks

harlan.harris@gmail.com (Harlan Harris) — Tue, 04 Sep 2018 00:00:00 +0000

Just a quick post here to note a few professional accomplishments:

I just added a new publication to my vita -- a peer-reviewed conference proceeedings article about abstractions for building repeated, related versions of similar predictive models. Check out some longer thoughts on Medium, or read the full article.
Earlier this year, I added an incredibly old project! A paper that I had contributed a bit to in... 2005! finally got published! It has something to do with the way information flows during speech perception... I think...
I'll be talking at two Meetups this Fall -- the RecSys NYC Meetup on Sept. 18th, and the Dataiku Data Science Meetup on Sept. 26th. In both Meetups, I'll be talking about (different) aspects of recommendations systems I'm building at WayUp.
And I'll be talking at two conferences this Fall too -- the Predictive APIs conference in Boston in October, and DataEngConf in NYC in November. At both of those conferences, I'll be talking about the software architecture aspects of building job recommendation systems that need to provide compelling recommendations just seconds after a user creates a rich profile.

Transparency, Trust, and Proprietary Predictive Analytics

harlan.harris@gmail.com (Harlan Harris) — Mon, 27 Feb 2017 00:00:00 +0000

This post was originally published on Medium

A particularly good talk at Strata NY last year was by Brett Goldstein, former CIO of Chicago, who talked about accountability and transparency in predictive models that affect people’s lives. This struck a strong chord with me, so I wanted to take some time to write down some thoughts. (And a rather longer time to publish those thoughts…) I’m sure others’ have thought about this more and have better takes on this — please comment and provide links!