ETech Ambient Findability
March 7, 2006
Peter Morville

Contributors:
Leon Chism -- leon@chism.org


==============================

background:
    LIS
    information architecture pioneer 
    co-author, IA for the WWW (1998, 2000)
    
current role:
    president of semantic studios
    co-founder, IA Institute
    Faculty, UM School of Information
    Author, Ambient Findability (2005) aka "the lemur book"
    
Info. Arch:
    how do you structure data.
    help them find what they are looking for
    
    1. compibination of the organization labeling and navigation schemes within an 
information system
    2. structural design of an info space to facilitate task completion.
    3. the art and science of structuring and classifying web sites
    4.
    
Lessons Learned:
* Have to provide multiple paths to data.
    search form, index, categories
    
* words matter a lot. users have a hard time taking a conceptual step back and ask 
"what's the category". bubble up the words they already use.

* search is a system. 
    think about:
        * user's query -- precision vs. recall
        * search interface -- needs to be obvious
        * search engine
        * content - geometric growth in content results in exponential growth in 
complexity. metadata matters. date filtering. 
        * results interface - highly used part of a site. interface design. 
ranking. clustering. 
        
Marcia Bates, in 1989, _Berrypicking, Evolving Search
    users learn while searching
    
usability is now a synonym for quality.
user experience honeycomb:
        useful
    usable  desireable
        valuable
    findable   accessible
        credible
        
attractive products are perceived as more useful and better.

google results page is the web's version of "location location location"
    higher results also build trust.
    
case study: national cancer institute
    wasn't doing well on searches for kinds of cancer.
    
any architect needs to have one foot in the past and one in the future.

findability:
    the quality of being locatable or navigable.
    easy to discover or locate?
    objects and systems.
    the degree to which a system supports wayfinding, nav, and retrieval
    
++ _Women, Fire, and Dangerous Things: What Categories Reveal About the Mind_

Chained Libraries
    in the middle ages, books were scarce.
    now its all searchable all the time
    Google books.
    Blogjects / Spimes
    the wealth of info creates a poverty of attention.
    
Ambient Orbs
    alternate interface to networked digital information
    
The IoThings is already happening
    Cisco wireless location appiance.
    shows where tagged things are...keeps wheelchairs from being stolen.
    
Watch to track your kids
    gps, locked to writst.
    built in pager
    911 request
    sync. clock.
    amazon customer reviews complain it doesn work well enough or indoors.
    
David Brin's _The transparent society_
rich folks can alreay watch. question is who wants to watch them?

how do you describe the aboutness of our findable objects?

lots of Information Visualization is shit. Tufte be damned.

Revenge of the Librarians
    everyone using the web is a librarian.
    everyone talks about metadata. used to be relegated to card catalog.
    
David Weinberger: the old way creates trees. the new way rakes leaves together.

brand's how buildings learn.
fast change:
    fastion and art
    commerce
    infrastructure
    governance
    culture
    nature
slow to change

podzinger: speech to text translator.

Third Order of Ignorance rummy reference.
IBM's Pubilic Image Monitoring tool.
monitors blogs, etc.

attensity.com

"search has become the new interface of commerce" -- John Battell

wikipedia uses both a traditional and a user defined org. structure.

Open Source Intelligence:

chicago crime machup.
bird flu mashup.
NYT subway strike that allowed users to post information on transit experiences.

findability is more relevant than ever.
don't throw out the all.
bring old and new togther.