Kristina Höök, Ph.D., SICS: Individuals in Space

When people need information, they will often turn to other people rather than use more formalised information artefacts. When navigating cities people tend to ask other people for advice rather than study maps (Streeter and Vitello, 1985), when trying to find information about pharmaceuticals medical doctors tend to ask other doctors for advice (Tiimpka and Hallberg, 1996), if your child has red spots you might phone your mother or talk to a friend for an opinion. Even when we are not directly looking for information we use a wide range of cues, both from features of the environment and from the behaviour of other people, to manage our activities. Alan Munro observed how people followed crowds or simply sat around at a venue when deciding which shows to attend at the Edinburgh Arts Festival (Munro, 1998). We might be influenced to pick up a book because it appears well thumbed, we walk into a sunny courtyard because it looks attractive or we might decide to see a film because our friends enjoyed it. Not only do we find our ways through spaces from talking to or following the trails of crowds of people, we also evaluate the things we find in these spaces through understanding them in a social context. We put them in a framework of relevance. We name this cluster of behaviour "social navigation". In my talk, I'll discuss why we believe that this might be a good approach to aiding people to find their way through information spaces: aiding the individuals in space!

Välkommna!
Ola Henfridsson