Vade Mecum for the infonaut

Persona

Kristina Höök
Swedish Institute og Computer Science
kia@sics.se

The PERSONA project explores the problem of navigation in information spaces. One of its goals is to gain better insight in why this poses more difficulties for some users than for others.

We started out with a number of design ideas that we wanted to explore. One was to view the entire interface to a computer application as a space through which users navigate. Using this perspective, we wanted to develop a method (the Navigational Instrument ) to bring our understanding of navigating both real and information spaces to interface design. The other design idea was to develop a concept (which we named social navigation) that would capture some of the strategies people apply when they try make sense of, or find their way in, the real world. Basically, social navigation means that you talk to other people or follow their trails in orienting yourself, formulating your goals or navigating through an information space.

Now that nearly two years have passed since the project started, we have a number of results that fill the two design concepts with content:

• The Navigational Instrument has been developed and used on two-dimensional interfaces, and is currently being upgraded to three-dimensional ones. The instrument itself is implemented as a piece of interactive software that will be made available publicly on the Internet.

• The idea of social navigation has been elaborated in a book (published by Springer this August) in which we provide a richer understanding of the various different mechanisms that we group under this heading.

• We have also implemented two prototypes that illustrate a range of different social navigation aids. One allows for navigation with a couple of ironic agents (called Agneta & Frida) as company. The other prototype, the Social Navigator, makes both direct and indirect contact with other users. It is being applied on the Web to the domain of shopping for food and getting recipes.

All this has given us a better understanding of the navigational problem and possible solutions to it. We have taken several steps forward in moving from a completely task-based approach to interface design, to one where we take into account both individual differences, social aspects, and ‘softer’ aesthetic principles (such as flow, delight and experience). We are currently finishing our implementation work and evaluating our solutions.

PERSONA web site: www.sics.se/humle/projects/persona/web/