Social Navigation

Anam YaminArif Kazmi

Danial SohailMahad Asim Hamza

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Overview

Definition of social navigationForms of navigationSocial Navigation and its implication on designDesign principles for social navigationEvaluating social navigation

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Defining Social Navigation

The concept of social navigation was introduced by Dourish and Chalmers in 1994.

They saw social navigation as navigation towards a cluster of people or navigation because other people have looked at something.

It refers to situations in which a user's navigation through an information space is guided and structured by the activities of others within that space.

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Elements of social navigation activity

Social navigation comprises of five elements:Starting point DestinationRoute Navigating agentOther agents with whom the navigating agent

interacts

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Information Space

An information space is anything that allows information to be stored, received and possibly transformed

People acquire KNOWLEDGE in 3 steps:Landmarks :distinctive features in the environment

that people use as reference points.

Route Knowledge: Routes are procedural description on how to get from one place to another.

Survey Knowledge: Birds eye representation that allow people to find alternative routes and destinations

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INFORMATION SPACES

Relational orientation and reciprocity The world is organized in the same way for all of us, at least at a cultural level. We have the same reference level

Proximity and action :We act in our near proximity.

Partitioning: Interaction occurs in our near proximity so distance can be used as a means to partition a space and interaction.

Presence and awareness The awareness of others and their actions influence our own activity.

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PROPERTIES OF SPACE

Metaphors: metaphors from the real world make the transition to the virtual information space easier for people

Semantically organized: objects in the space are related to each other. Grouping related objects makes it easier for users to find their way in space and it makes the space seem more organized

Socially organized: in virtual information spaces, we cannot see people and how they interact until we join them

Dynamic versus static: spaces can be open or close. Open spaces are difficult to navigate

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NAVIGATION

WHAT DO PEOPLE NEED TO KNOW? the user must know the location to go and be able to identify it.

WHAT DO PEOPLE KNOW? What knowledge do we have at our disposal when navigating a space and what might that knowledge look like?

HOW DO PEOPLE ACQUIRE THEIR KNOWLEDGE?

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Types Of Navigation

Way finding: the activity of going from one place to another.

Exploration: Navigation without a specific destination

Object identification: Being able to identify objects in space or at least the object (location) they want to reach.

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Forms of Social Navigation

Direct:In direct social navigation,we talk directly to other users.

Indirect : In indirect social navigation, we can see the traces of where people have been in the space.

Intended :when we recommend to someone a place to visit.

Unintended : No traces for others to follow.

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Objectives of social navigation

navigation should be a delightful experience part of navigation is goal formulationand recognize the risk of making users anxious

about getting lost or cognitively overloaded.

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Social Navigation and implication for design

the role of the advice provider: “Is it important that she is trusted?”; “How should actions be communicated between advice providers and advice seekers?”;“Are there any privacy issues concerning advice providers?”

the role of the advice seeker: Advice seekers need to be aware of advice providers:“How will presence of others and their actions be mediated to advice seekers?”.

how social navigation fits into the overall system: Social navigation is not a tool in itself but a way to support a user in solving a navigational task.

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Design principles for navigation

Presence: how is the presence of other users mediated?

Trust: how can we trust the advice from other users?

Privacy: how can users’ privacy be supported?

Appropriateness: when and how is social navigation suitable?

Integration: how do we integrate social navigation into an existing system?

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Evaluating social navigation

Properties in social navigation are completely different from traditional user interfaces.

Efficiency along with issues such as pleasure and peoples’ reactions to social navigation are also of concern

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Basis for evaluation

FilteringSocial texture and qualitySocial affordanceUsage shapes functionality and structureConcept drift Snowball effectBootstrapping

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Basis of evaluation

Filtering: The purpose of history-enriched environments and recommender systems is to help users filter out the most relevant information from a large information space.

Quality: information not only has to be relevant. But also possess qualities that can only be determined from how other users react to the social texture.

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Social affordance: awareness of others and their actions makes us feel that the space is alive and might make it more inviting.

Usage reshapes functionality and structure: Social navigation design may alter the organization of the space. It could be a first step towards empowering users to, in a natural subtle way, make the functionality and structure ‘drift’ and make information spaces more ‘fluid’.

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Bootstrapping: Social navigation systems often rely on the accumulated user behavior,such as, trails of where people have gone. Such trails will work poorly when little information has been collected, and thus need to be bootstrapped before they can work properly.

Privacy: Social navigation relies on the visibility of people and their actions. In what circumstances are people willing to be visible and to what extent? There is reason to believe that some users are willing to share almost anything about themselves, while others want to be invisible

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Snowball effects: When more and more people walk down the ‘wrong’ path this will be indicated as a ‘good’ path in a typical social navigation system. To what extent is it possible to detect and deal with these wrong paths?

Concept drifts: Over time people and information change. In order for social navigation to be really successful it has to take into consideration that peoples’ interests change and that different types of information have different expiration dates.

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Design: Designing a social navigation system entails deciding on which of numerous ways social texture should be communicated, such as: how to mediate the presence of other users or finding the useful implicit actions that can be naturally included in the system dialogue.

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References

J. Mattias Forseberg: Social navigation: extended definition

Martin Svensson: Defining, Designing and Evaluating Social Navigation, December 2002

http://edutechwiki.unige.ch/en/Social_navigation

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THANK YOU