Ambient Findability

1
Ambient Findability

• Peter Morville
• Information Architect
• founder Semantic Studios
• Ambient Findability blog
• What does Ambient Findability mean to you?

2
Findability

• The quality of being locatable or navigable.
• The degree to which a particular object is easy
  to discover or locate.
• The degree to which a system or environment
  supports navigation and retrieval.
• These systems objects need architecting to
  allow findability.
• Findability (information) literacy?

3
Lost Found

• Information Access is expanding
• Content
• Availability
• Technology
• an information-rich world with new possibilities
  and problems (p3)
• Whats not information or ambient ?
• Whats the life of desktop computing?
• Notebook computing?
• How has your own information experience changed
  in the past few years?
• Does findability change it?
• What else might?
• Fun, Business, Education?

4
Findability Wayfinding

• What is wayfinding?
• How maps, addresses, signs building/design
  conventions let us know where we are how to
  get someplace else. (p17)
• Digital Wayfinding?
• How sitemaps, URIs, icons site/task
  conventions
• Context is key
• Location, location, location

5
Wayfinding technology

• Navigation tools
• Lighthouse
• Compass
• Chip log
• Sextant
• Chronometer
• Maps Charts
• Paths - streets, paths
• Edges - walls, fences, doors
• Districts - sections
• Nodes - points of reference, transitions
• Landmarks - contextual for each of us

6
Wayfinding in the Noosphere?

• Is virtual wayfinding the same as in the real
  world?
• Whats the real world again?
• Where are you when you talk on the phone?
• When youre on the Web?
• Metaphors at play
• Is it all about finding? As a goal?
• Less about finding as discovering?
• Wheres the space for the Web?
• But its not all about the Web is it?
• When the going gets mobile, your space does
  matter.

7
Information Retrieval Findability

• How closely is IR related to (A)F?
• Mooers - the trouble with IR
• The Information conundrum
• We wouldnt be here if it wasnt for the Web
• Visual navigation lets us apply real world
  metaphors to the Web
• Thats a great first step, but
• What changes does ambient information lead us to
  in the future?
• How does relevance change?

8
Information Interaction

• Computational power makes interacting with
  information possible and easier
• How easy?
• Often too much of a good thing?
• Moving beyond the linear model
• Berrypicking
• Iterative models (state context)
• Complex inforation seeking models
• The Age of Broadband?

9
Wayfinding 2.0

• Were only beginning to understand the way to
  design information for ubiquitous interaction
• What models of information use and mobility make
  the most sense to build upon?
• Techniques (context related)
• Triangulation
• Proximity
• Scene analysis
• What about our context?
• Habits, preferences, constraints

10
Findable Objects

• How can we work in concert with physical objects
  in an information landscape?
• Give objects metadata that relates to their
  properties context
• Is this a technology-driven manifest destiny?
• GPS, RFID, URI, UPC, Sensor nets, nano-everything
• How would each of the technologies change
• Information access
• Information retrieval
• Findability and re-findability?
• If we have information overload now, what about
  with all this online, all the time?

11
Designing for Findability

• Findability precedes Usability
• In the Alphabet and on the Web
• You cant use what you cant find
• List of hacks on page 111-3

12
Sociosemantic Web

• How does the interaction change with increased
  access?
• Increased content?
• Increased speed? (fluidity)
• Is it people-based understanding vs.
  machine-based?
• Metadata for us or machines?
• Why not both?
• This needs some serious architecting
• Taxonomies
• Ontologies
• Folksonomies

13
Thinking about Findability

• Whats inspiring about these ideas?
• How would you use them?
• As a designer or IA?
• As a person?
• Do you think this is a new metaphor for the
  information seeking process?
• Whats new about it?
• Whats it building on top of?
• How would these principles ideas influence your
  IA work?