2008-10-17

Beyond Google - seeking the un-indexed content

Khai N. Truong, Department of Computer Science, University of Toronto
MIT CSAIL HCI (Human Computer Interaction) Seminar

The talk was about ubiquitous computing and human-computer interaction.

First, the talk was about a diary study that lasted 4 weeks, aiming to capture information needs of people when they are not at the computer - What Why Where What When?
858 needs were reported; 22.5% needs were not satisfied in time; 32.2% needs were never satisfied. More information on the CSCW 2008 paper by Dearman, Kellar & Truong

Next the talk was about the analysis of why people answer in the site Yahoo Answers.
Their main motivation is to help others and not to learn. A similar approach can be used for mobile applications, to try and capture information in context.

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On a side-note, the presentation used a very neat visual technique: small replicas of previous sides on the lower right corner of a new slide, to help the audience recall a previous slide.

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