nfais-social discovery in an information abundant world

Social Discoveryin an Information Abundant World

Ben Shneiderman [email protected] @benbendc

Founding Director (1983-2000), Human-Computer Interaction LabProfessor, Dept. of Computer Science

Member, Institute for Advanced Computer Studies

Miles Conrad Award LectureNFAIS, Feb. 28, 2011

Interdisciplinary research community - Computer Science & Info Studies - Psych, Socio, Poli Sci & MITH (www.cs.umd.edu/hcil)

Design Issues

• Input devices & strategies• Keyboards, pointing devices, voice

• Direct manipulation

• Menus, forms, commands

• Output devices & formats• Screens, windows, color, sound

• Text, tables, graphics

• Instructions, messages, help

• Collaboration & Social Media

• Help, tutorials, training

• Search www.awl.com/DTUI

Fifth Edition: 2010

• Visualization

Spotfire: Retinol’s role in embryos & vision

http://registration.spotfire.com/eval/default_edu.asp

Fact-Finding SearchNFAIS 2008

Discovery Process: Task Analysis

Specific fact finding (known-item search) On what day was Barack Obama born? <Google succeeds>

NFAIS 2008



Extended fact finding (vague query) What cities did John McCain live in since he became a Senator?

Exploration of availability (vague result request) What genealogical information on Barack Obama is at the National Archives?

NFAIS 2008



Extended fact finding (vague query) What cities did John McCain live in since he became a Senator?

Exploration of availability (vague result request) What genealogical information on Barack Obama is at the National Archives?

Open-ended browsing and problem analysis (hidden assumptions) How has John McCain’s position on the environment changed since 2001?

Mismatch with metadata (requires exhaustive search) How has Barack Obama’s choice of clothing changed during his campaign?

NFAIS 2008


Specific fact finding (known-item search

Extended fact finding (vague query

Exploration of availability (vague result request

Open-ended browsing and problem analysis (hidden assumptions

Mismatch with metadata (requires exhaustive search

NFAIS 2008


Specific fact finding (known-item search

Extended fact finding (vague query

Exploration of availability (vague result request

Open-ended browsing and problem analysis (hidden assumptions

Mismatch with metadata (requires exhaustive search

1-minute

Weeks &Months

NFAIS 2008

Discovery Process: Design Challenges

Enrich query formulation

Expand result management

Enable long-term effort

Enhance collaboration

Deal with special cases: - Legal, patent & medical searches require thoroughness - Proving non-existence is difficult - Outlier items can be critical - Bridging items can be critical

NFAIS 2008

NFAIS 2011: Social Discovery

• Facebook minutes exceed Google minutes



• Social referral exceeds solitary search

http://ukwebfocus.wordpress.com/2010/06/09/if-social-discovery-is-beating-traditional-search/

Search and Rescue: How to Become Findable and Shareable in Social Media http://searchenginewatch.com/3639969

Social Referral Exceeds Solitary Search




• Ambitious challenges generate powerful collaborations





• Shift to App discovery & mobile search





• Shift to App discovery & mobile search

• Social Social Social Social Social Social Social Social Social Social Social Social Social Social Social Social Social Social Social Social Social Social Social Social Social Social Social Social Social Social Social Social Social Social Social Social Social Social Social Social Social Social Social Social Social Social Social Social Social Social Social Social Social Social Social Social Social Social Social Social Social Social Social Social Social Social Social Social Social Social Social Social

Discovery Process: Visual Analytics

Thomas & Cook, Illuminating the Path (2004)

Sense-Making Loop

•Information Seeking

•Information Foraging

•Exploration Insight

•Present Results

Social Discovery: New Media Lifestyle

Prosumption Cycle

•Producers & Consumers

•User Generated Content

•Crowdsourcing

•Collective Intelligence

http://www.socialtimes.com/2008/07/new-media-lifecycle-social-discovery/

Social Bookmarking: del.icio.us & connotea

Collaboration: Tagging & voting

www.hivegroup.com

Treemap: Digg Overview

Chomp: App Discovery

Blekko:

YAHOO! Answers

Wikia Answers

Quora

Search question topicsRead questions Read answers from named sourcesRate & contribute

VIVOweb: Enabling Networking of Scientists

Biodiversity: Encyclopedia of Life

eol.org

NASA Clickworkers: Crowdsource Science

Citizen Science Alliance

Collaboratories: Discovery Communities

Bos et al.,

Olson, Gary M., Zimmerman, Ann, & Bos, Nathan. (2008) Scientific Collaboration on the Internet. MIT Press.

Health, Healthcare & Wellness

Social Marketplace: Mechanical Turk

Social Challenge: Netflix Prize

Social Search/Discovery: Active & Passive

Social Challenge: Innocentive

TopCoder: Asking for Programming Help

• Linux, Mozilla, Apache,...

• CrisisCamp, Sahana, Hackathons, ....

Social Discovery

SocialDiscovery Create Capacity Seek Solution

Individual Tag, Comment, Rate, Review, Summarize

Ask questions, Offer challenge,Request collaboration, Seek experts

Community Establish thesauri,Prepare catalogs,Aggregate knowledge,Organize resources

Give answers, Respond to challenge, Discuss alternatives, Offer advice

Reader Contributor Collaborator `AllUsers

From Reader to Leader:Motivating Technology-Mediated Social Participation

Preece & Shneiderman, AIS Trans. Human-Computer Interaction1 (1), 2009 aisel.aisnet.org/thci/vol1/iss1/5/

Leader

Motivating Readers

Usability SociabilityInteresting & relevant content presented in attractive, well-organized layouts

Encouragement by friends, family, respected authorities, advertising

Frequently updated content with highlighting to encourage return visits

Repeated visibility in online, print, television, other media

Support for newcomers: tutorials, animated demos, FAQs, help, mentors, contacts

Understandable norms & policies

Clear navigation paths sense of mastery and control

Sense of belonging: recognition of familiar people & activities

Universal usability: novice/expert, small/large display, slow/fast network, multilingual, support for users with disabilities

Charismatic leaders with visionary goals

Interface design features to support reading, browsing, searching, sharing

Safety & privacy

Motivating Contributors

Usability Sociability

Low threshold interfaces to encourage small contributions (no login)

Support for legitimate peripheral participation

High ceiling interfaces that allow large frequent contributions

Chance to build reputation over time while performing satisfying tasks

Visibility for users’ contributions & impact - aggregated over time

Recognition for the highest quality & quantity of contributions

Visibility of ratings & comments Recognition of a person’s specific expertise

Tools to undo vandalism, limit malicious users, control pornography & libel

Policies & norms for contributions

Motivating Collaborators

Usability SociabilityWays to locate relevant & competent individuals to form collaborations

Atmosphere of empathy & trust that promotes belonging to the community & willingness to work within groups to produce something larger

Tools to collaborate: communicate within groups, schedule projects, assign tasks, share work products, request assistance

Altruism: a desire to support the community, desire to give back, willingness to reciprocate

Visible recognition collaborators, e.g. authorship, citations, links, acknowledgements

Ways to develop a reputation for themselves & their collaborators; develop & maintain status within group

Ways to resolve differences (e.g. voting), mediate disputes & deal with unhelpful collaborators

Respect for status within the community

Motivating Leaders

Usability Sociability

Leaders are given higher visibility & their efforts are highlighted, sometimes with historical narratives, special tributes, or rewards

Leadership is valued and given an honored position & expected to meet expectations

Leaders are given special powers, e.g. to promote agendas, expend resources,

or limit malicious users

Respect is offered for helping others & dealing with problems

Mentorship efforts are visibly celebrated, e.g. with comments from mentees

Mentors are cultivated & encouraged

NodeXL: Network Overview for Discovery & Exploration in Excel

www.codeplex.com/nodexl

NodeXL: Import Dialogs


Tweets at #WIN09 Conference: 2 groups

Tweets at #NFAIS11 Conference: Sunday

Size by Betweenness Centrality

Tweets at #NFAIS11 Conference: Sunday

Tweets at #NFAIS11 Conference: Monday

Size by Betweenness Centrality

Tweets at #NFAIS11 Conference: Monday

Size by Betweenness Centrality, Color by Cluster

WWW2010 Twitter Community

Tweets for #HCI: 2 groups

Oil Spill Twitter Community

www.codeplex.com/nodexl/

CHI2010 Twitter Community

www.codeplex.com/nodexl/

NodeXL: HIPAA, F-R layout, Size by Followers


NodeXL: HIPAA, H-K layout, extract smalls, size by Tweets


NodeXL: HIPAA, H-K, Size by Betweenness Centrality


Flickr clusters for “mouse”

Computer Mickey

Animal

Flickr networks

Analyzing Social Media Networks with NodeXL

I. Getting Started with Analyzing Social Media Networks 1. Introduction to Social Media and Social Networks 2. Social media: New Technologies of Collaboration 3. Social Network Analysis

II. NodeXL Tutorial: Learning by Doing 4. Layout, Visual Design & Labeling 5. Calculating & Visualizing Network Metrics 6. Preparing Data & Filtering 7. Clustering &Grouping

III Social Media Network Analysis Case Studies 8. Email 9. Threaded Networks 10. Twitter 11. Facebook 12. WWW 13. Flickr 14. YouTube 15. Wiki Networks

www.elsevier.com/wps/find/bookdescription.cws_home/723354/description

Social Media Research Foundation

Researchers who want to - create open tools - generate & host open data - support open scholarship

Map, measure & understand social media

Support tool projects to collection, analyze & visualize social media data.

smrfoundation.org

UN Millennium Development Goals

• Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger• Achieve universal primary education• Promote gender equality and empower women• Reduce child mortality• Improve maternal health• Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases• Ensure environmental sustainability• Develop a global partnership for development

To be achieved by 2015

28th Annual SymposiumMay 25-26, 2011

www.cs.umd.edu/hcil

Social Search/Discovery: Active&Passive

• Create content: scanned & born digital• Individual & group efforts

• Improve info quality • consistency, clarity, completeness

• currency, sourced, linked

• Organize data: taxonomies, tagging, rating

• Common queries, results ranking, query refinement

• Interpreting & organizing results

“Noovo is a social discovery platform that helps users contribute, find and share highly relevant content in the simplest possible way,”

Social media has fundamentally changed the way that people discover products, services and content. It's no longer simply about the old method of product, price and placement, it's about relevance, value and virality. As the effectiveness of traditional online marketing continues to decline, how can you be sure that your message is not only absorbed, but embraced, passed along and viewed as valuable? There have already been plenty of studies conducted that show us that word of mouth is the most trusted source of information for internet users. It's probably fair to say that word of mouth is the most trusted method of discovery and influence in general. I'm much more likely to go see a movie if a good friend tells me I'll like it versus seeing an ad. http://heavybagmedia.com/blog/2008/11/28/maximizing-social-discovery-opportunities-on-the-social-web

Social Discovery

SocialDiscovery Create Capacity Seek Solution

Individual Tag, Comment, Rate, Review, Summarize

Ask questions, Offer challenge,Request collaboration, Seek experts

Community Establish thesauri,Prepare catalogs,Aggregate knowledge,Organize resources

Give answers, Discuss alternatives, Respond to challenge, Offer advice

Social Discovery in an Information Abundant World Ben Shneiderman [email protected] Twitter @benbendc University of Maryland, Founding Director (1983-2000), Human-Computer Interaction Lab Professor, Department of Computer Science, Member, Institute for Advanced Computer Studies Miles Conrad Award Lecture NFAIS, February 28, 2011

Asking for Help

• Requests to your community

• Posts to discussion groups

• Questions to free answer services

• Questions to paid answer services• Mechanical Turk

• Quora

• Innocentive

Forming Collaborations

• Find fellow searchers with shared interests

• Hire staff to follow your leadership

• Recruit domain experts to work with you

• Hire team to provide diverse skills

Social Search/Discovery: Active & Passive

• Early systems: GroupSearch, CoSearch, Ariadne

• Tagging: Digg, Connotea

• Rating, Ranking, Reviewing

• Social Search: Wikia Search

• Facebook & Twitter requests

U.S. Library of Congress

• Scholars, Journalists, Citizens

• Teachers, Students

Visible Human Explorer (NLM)

• Doctors

• Surgeons

• Researchers

• Students

NASA Environmental Data

• Scientists

• Farmers

• Land planners

• Students

Bureau of the Census

• Economists, Policy makers, Journalists

• Teachers, Students

NSF Digital Government Initiative

• Find what you need

• Understand what you Find

www.ils.unc.edu/govstat/

Census,NCHS, BLS, EIA,

NASS, SSA

Recovery.gov

Information Visualization

• Visual bandwidth is enormous• Human perceptual skills are remarkable

• Trend, cluster, gap, outlier...

• Color, size, shape, proximity...

• Three challenges• Meaningful visual displays of massive data

• Interaction: widgets & window coordination

• Process models for discovery:

ManyEyes: A web sharing platform

http://manyeyes.alphaworks.ibm.com/manyeyes