Method for carrying out the text content search of a document database utilizing multi-node nets. The nodes of these nets are associated with interactions and are loaded with initially selected criteria, whereupon a potential or distance function calculation is carried out with respect to each document of the database and those criteria containing nodes. The created nets are displayed with document symbols geometrically located with respect to the nodes and interaction lines in correspondence with the computed potentials to provide for an interactive visual evaluation of the search by the user. Such evaluations then may be employed to refine node contained criteria toward useful rule-based nodes.