Introduction to FindabilityCyril Doussin, 28/05/08
Ambient Findability
Peter Morvillehttp://semanticstudios.com/
“Find”
• discover or perceive by chance or unexpectedly
• discover after a deliberate search
• succeed in obtaining
“Find”
• what is exposed to us (on purpose or inadvertently)
• after searching
Searching for...
physical items
Searching for...
• about oneself
• about concepts (meaning of...)
• detailed information (eg. product)
• entities in the same society (people, businesses, organisations etc.)
Knowledge
Searching for...
• to validate feelings or judgments
• to establish trust relationships
• complementary judgments
Opinions
Searching for information
• physical
• conceptual
• social
• knowledge
• judgments
Information
• Data: a string of identified but unevaluated symbols
• Information: evaluated, validated or useful data
• Knowledge: information in the context of understanding
Information closely tied to communication
Memes
Pieces of information transmitted from one mind to another
what viral marketing is trying to achieve
Multi-Agent Systems
• reactive agents
• cognitive agents
Systems composed of interacting intelligent agents.
Interesting base to study collective behaviour & communication patterns.
Findability
“Findability refers to the quality of being locatable or navigable.”
Findability: item level
evaluate to what degree a particular object is easy to discover or locate
Findability: system level
how well a physical or digital environment supports navigation and retrieval
Wayfinding• Knowing where you are
• Knowing your destination
• Following the best route
• Being able to recognise your destination
• Finding your way back
Directional Sense by Jan Carpman and Myron Grant. Evans & Co. (2006)
How to make something findable?
• make sure the item is easy to discover or locate
• have a well-organised system which supports easy navigation and retrieval
“In Your Face”Discovery Principle
Expose the item in places known to be frequented by the target audience
Hand-guided navigation
• sorting/ordering
• sign-posting
Describe & browse
• similar to asking for directions
• similar to asking random questions
• get list of entry-points to pages
Mixing things up
Recommendations
• describe intent
• casual discussions
• advice
• past-experiences
= communication between peers
Web = Referral system
• Anyone can add signs to entry-doors on your site
• need for relevancy system
• search engines: PageRank
• peer based: Digg
Relevance
• Precision: how well a system retrieves only relevant documents
• Recall: how well a system retrieves all relevant documents
Precision = Number relevant & retrieved /Total number retrieved
Recall = Number relevant & retrieved /Total number relevant
Relevance
• Sample search: small set of documents are sufficient
• Existence search: search for a specific document
• Exhaustive search: full set of documents needed
Need to identify the type of search
Prec
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Content Organisation
• Taxonomy: organisation through labeling
• Ontology: taxonomy + inference rules
• Folksonomy: adding a social dimension
• Increasingly important as the volume of information grows and information is shared
• Very good base for search engines.
Measuring Findability on the Web
• count number of steps
• many ways to get to your data
• search engines predominant
• peer-based lists and directories important
Recommendations
• Aim to strike a balance between sources
• Know the path your audience will follow
• Understand type of search
• Make advertising relevant
• Make your content rich & relevant
• Make your content structured
The End
Thank you!
