Contextual information lookup and navigation

An apparatus comprising:

• one or more computer readable storage media;
• and
• an application for consuming or creating content including a contextual search component, the application embodied in program instructions stored on the one or more computer readable media that, when executed by a processor of a processing system, direct the processing system to:
• render a user interface comprising:
• a content view of content being consumed or created by a user, the content view including a contextual search element through which to engage the contextual search component;
• a preview view of contextual search results organized in a hierarchy based on source and rendered in response to receiving the contextual search results;
• and
• an interactive expanded view rendered in response to receiving an indication of a selection for an interactive expanded view from the preview view and including interface elements through which the user navigates the hierarchy, wherein the interactive expanded view enables the user to navigate to a particular contextual result via selection of a link, a title or a source name;
• and
• determine an information source associated with each result of the contextual search results;
• group the contextual search results by their determined information source;
• and present the groups according to the hierarchy based on source in the preview view, wherein a layout of the presented contextual results is based on the type of content of the information source.

A reader apparatus comprising:

• one or more computer-readable storage media;
• an input device;
• and:
• program instructions stored on the one or more computer readable media that, when executed by a processor of a processing system of the reader apparatus, direct the processing system to at least:
• render a document for display;
• receive, via the input device, an indication of an initial content selection in the document and a request for contextual search of the initial content selection;
• in response to the request for the contextual search, send the initial content selection and a selection context comprising an additional portion of text surrounding the initial content selection to a contextual search service;
• present an identified selection to a user, wherein the identified selection based on the initial content selection and the selection context, wherein the identified selection includes one or more proposed terms from the additional portion of text surrounding the initial content selection determined to be relevant to the initial content selection;
• render a visual motif in the document to indicate the two or more identified selection terms;
• enable the user to select and deselect from the identified selection to refine the identified selection;
• receive the refined identified selection and contextual search results from the contextual search service;
• organize the contextual search results in a hierarchy based on source;
• render an interactive view of the organized contextual search results;
• and
• enable the user to further refine the contextual results by selecting and deselecting one or more of the rendered contextual results.