The Navigation Layer - Making Sense Of It All

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As we accumulate more and more information online, we’re inclined to add more and more metadata—so we can order it, manage it, and re-find it. This growing belt of metadata is referred to as the “navigation layer.“ It‘s the series of filters, categories, tags, and other devices that let us to interact with information so we can sift out the noise. What’s more, the navigation layer isn’t just about finding information—it can also help us make sense of the stuff we find. Sentiment analysis and entity extraction, for example, provide new insights into the information we come across. Ultimately, the navigation layer can point to high-order patterns that increase understanding.

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Navigation Layer:

Making Sense Of It All

April 2010Polish IA Summit, Warsaw

James Kalbach

User Experience Consultant LexisNexis

LIS Degree Rutgers University

Metadata

Structure

Sense Making

POPULARITY

ITEMS

Head = Hits

Long Tail = Niche Markets

You can find

anything in

the Long Tail

When there are millions

of books, millions of

songs, millions of films,

millions of applications,

millions of everything

requesting our attention

—and most of it free—

being found is valuable. 

Kevin Kelly

Findability

The solution to the

overabundance of

information is

more information

Navigation Layer

No Frame of Reference

UsersAlgorith

msExperts

Users

Algorithms

Experts

STRUCTURE

METADATA

GTN

In the navigation

layer, any and all

types of metadata

and structure may

be needed.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/arimoore/3816335057/

Information Foraging

http://www.flickr.com/photos/lindenbaum/357980051/in/set-72157594481060620

Metadata Harvesting

http://www.flickr.com/photos/bitzi/178374312/

Sense Making

Berrypicking and

information foraging

are primitive

metaphors. We need to

be talking about

metadata harvesting

and sense making.

CONTENTNews

ResearchBlogs

Twitter…

Beyond Findability:Sense Making

Sense Making

Info Seeking Theory Brenda Dervin, 1980s

Sense Making in IR Dan Russell et al. , 1993

Human-Info Interaction (HII) Nahum Gershon,1995

Sense Making workshops CHI 2008, 2009

HCI/IR Workshops 2007—present

1. Representation

How information is presented affects sense making

BUT representation is difficult in complex situations

Text-based Lists, trees, tables, clouds

Spatial Webs, diagrams

Graph-based Charts, graphs

http://www.aalab.net/projects/maps/

“Clutter and

confusion are failures

of design, not

attributes of

information.”

Edward Tufte

2. Interaction

The ability to manipulate information is critical

BUT there are effort-benefit tradeoffs

Sorting

Grouping

Filtering

Change Display

Zooming

3. Semantics

Topical relevance frames sense making activity

BUT semantics are subjective and changing

Content

Categories

Facets

Labels

Domain

Domain Analysis

What is the structure of information in a given domain?

How is information generated ?What is the social life of information ?

• Facets

• Frequency

• Longevity

• Quantity

• Linking

• Authority

• Quality

• Genres

How do you create an

information system that

provides answers to

questions people don’t

know to ask?

Don‘t know what you need to know

Sense Making Challenges:

1.Representation

2.Interaction

3.Semantics

4. User needs

5. Business needs

There is a cost to adding more and

more

Any and All Metadata and Structures

Information Foraging Metadata

Harvesting

Findability Sense Making

Thank You

James.Kalbach@Gmail.com

www.experiencinginformation.com

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