Recall measures the quantity of results returned by a search and precision is the measure of the quality of the results returned. Recall is the ratio of relevant results returned divided by all relevant results. Precision is the number of relevant results returned divided by the total number of results returned.
The diagram represents a low-precision, low-recall search. The red and green dots represent the total population of potential search results for a given search. Red dots represent irrelevant results, and green dots represent relevant results. Relevancy is indicated by the proximity of search results to the center of the inner circle. Of all possible results shown, those that were actually returned by the search are shown on a light-blue background. In the example only one relevant result of three possible relevant results was returned, so the recall is a very low ratio of 1/3. The precision for the example is a very low 1/4, since only one of the four results returned was relevant.
Michael Coles, Hillary Cotter
Leave a reply