Documentretrieval is a highly interactive process dealing with large amounts of information.Visual representations em both provide a means for managing the complexity of large information structures and support an interface style well suited to interactive manipulation.The system we have designed utilizes visually displayed graphic structures and a direct manipulation interface style to supply an integrated environment for retrieval.A common visually displayed network structure is used for query, document conteng and term relations.A query can be modified through direct manipulation of its visual form by incorporating terms from any other information structure the system displays An associative thesaurus of terms and an interdocument network provide information about a document collection that can complement other retrieval aids Visualization of these large data structures makes use of fisheye views and overview diagrams to help overcome some of the difficulties of orientation and navigation in large information structures