1. A method of updating an existing visual display responsive to a subsequent user query, comprising the steps of: obtaining new information requested by the subsequent user query; and dynamically deriving one or more visual transformations for updating at least a portion of the existing display to incorporate the new information, wherein the transformation derivation is modeled as an optimization operation which attempts to balance visual context management constraints and to achieve a desired presentation of intended information, and the optimization operation comprises computing an overall display overlap metric based on a visual overlap metric and a semantic overlap metric and regulating the overall display overlap metric to allow more overlap for a data browsing display application and less overlap for a data filtering display application; wherein the existing display comprises search results associated with a prior user query, the new information comprises search results associated with the subsequent user query, and the intended information comprises at least a portion of the search results associated with the prior user query and at least a portion of the search results associated with the subsequent user query.