UNDERSTANDING SERENDIPITY TO INFORM NOVEL …rs46/posters/de2011.pdfresearch • the development of...
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS: Thanks to all those who participated in workshops and interviews. This work is funded and supported by SerenA Digital Economy Research (EP/H042741/1) and Horizon Digital Economy Research (RCUK grant EP/G065802/1). The Digital Economy Programme is a Research Councils UK cross council initiative led by EPSRC and contributed to by AHRC, ESRC and MRC Design by Vicky Hale at projectstuff PROJECT PARTNERS: Dundee Contemporary Arts, Dundee, UK MediaCityUK, Salford, UK Contact: Mel Woods, Principal Investigator Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art and Design, University of Dundee [email protected] UNDERSTANDING SERENDIPITY TO INFORM NOVEL PROCESSES, METHODS AND TECHNOLOGIES FOR THE RESEARCHER Mel Woods, Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art and Design, University of Dundee. [email protected] Robert Stewart, Diana Bental & Ruth Aylett, Heriot Watt University. {r.stewart, d.s.bental, r.s.aylett}@ hw.ac.uk Stephann Makri & Ann Blandford, UCL Interaction Centre, University College London. {s.makri,a.blandford}@ucl.ac.uk Xu Sun & Sarah Sharples, School of Mechanical, Materials and Manufacturing Engineering, University of Nottingham. {sarah.sharples, xu sun}@nottingham.ac.uk Jamie Forth & Geraint A. Wiggins, Goldsmiths, University of London. {j.forth, g.wiggins}@gold.ac.uk Scott Piao & Jon Whittle, School of Computing and Communications, Lancaster University. {s.piao, j.n.whittle}@lancaster.ac.uk Chance Encounters in the Space of Ideas http://www.serena.ac.uk i_serena A I M S A N U N D E R S T A N D I N G O F S E R E N D I P I T Y STORIES OF SERENDIPITY An Urban Design researcher was thinking about how to design a joint university faculty building for sustainability and architecture. The aim of the building design was to ‘try to bring together’ researchers from the two related disciplines. The researcher wanted to design the movement within the building to provide many different paths between rooms so that “you had to walk past a series of exhibitions and possible inspirations on your way to your office every single day.” Whilst sitting in the studio and after a long day of thinking about how to design the building, the researcher stopped work to turn on the US news-based comedy programme ‘The Daily Show.’ - where the host makes fun of the news and talks to a guest towards the end of the show. In this particular programme, the chosen guest was a geologist who had found the wreckage of the RMS Titanic. When asked about his most significant (rather than best known) finding, the geologist described finding large ecosystems at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean where giant tubeworms had a symbiotic relationship with creatures that lived inside the tubeworms, where the creatures would capture sulphur that had escaped from the earth’s crust to each others benefit. The researcher found this description particularly inspiring and translated the concept of the tubeworms’ symbiotic relationship with the creatures into a metaphor to guide her building design. She used this metaphor to design the building based on a symbiotic, sustainable concept where spaces within the building “live off each other” – where “if you had taken something and cut it off, you were cutting off some of the life source.” I N T R O D U C T I O N Many scientific innovations have been attributed to serendipity, the faculty of making and recognising fortunate and unexpected discoveries by accident. However, while there is a widespread acknowledgement that serendipity is a major contributor to innovation, there are no cohesive theories about serendipity or the design of technologies that may facilitate it, furthermore there is disagreement as to whether digital technologies promote or stifle it. Designers and Artists’, have experimented in practice with methods that seek to engineer serendipity or chance investigations. ‘Surrealists’ and ‘Dadaists’ sought to juxtapose objects in new and unexpected ways. Guy Debord and the ‘Situationalists’ developed theories of the Derive or wander. Improvisation theory and the gap between intention and outcome are seen as crucial to the meaning of serendipity and chance in art. The SerenA project aims to establish subtle and unknown connections between people, their research, and the world around them. The project is driven by the requirements of researchers to overcome the challenges of discovering what they did not know they needed to know. I M P L E M E N T I N G A N D EV A L U A T I N G A DIARY STUDY Aim: To understand serendipity in information research Method: Eleven participations over one week used a mobile diary application developed on the Android mobile platform to allow participants to rapidly capture how serendipity happens and the context in which they experience serendipity. Output: Diary entries were discussed during post-study interviews. An Emergent Themes Analysis was conducted to understand the data. SERENDIPITY STORIES Aim: To gain a rich understanding of researchers’ perceptions of their broad experiences of serendipity. Method: A study of semi-structured Critical Incident interviews with 28 researchers’ across different disciplines ranging from Architectural Design, to Computational Musicology, to Security and Crime Science. The SerenA project focuses on: • building an understanding of serendipity through empirical studies, specifically within information discovery and research • the development of a system to support and promote connections and information between people and ideas • designing, implementing and evaluating technologies with novel approaches in digital and physical spaces. Discussions arising from the workshops were a useful first step for understanding the nature of serendipity and for providing the SerenA team with a reference tool for ‘looking back’ at our initial understanding. DIARY STUDY RESULTS: • key elements to support understanding of serendipity • the influential role of context in serendipitous experiences • a framework of understanding how serendipity happens • the positive impacts of serendipity in people’s information research. The framework for classifying serendipity should consider: • aspects associated with the activity • the value of the information • the source of the information • the interaction between the context and individual. F U T U R E W O R K WORKSHOP: MEDIATING CONNECTIONS: THE ROLE OF EMERGING TECHNOLOGIES IN TRANSFORMING AND PRESENTING INFORMATION AND IDEAS RCUK DIGITAL ECONOMY ALL HANDS/DIGITAL FUTURES CONFERENCE October 2010 Workshop session 1: ‘Integrating arts, engineering and interaction design: Requirements Gathering and Novel Approaches’. Aim: To explore potential user requirements with researchers. Method: A 3-part workshop: • What is Serendipity?’ • Your Serendipitous Future: future tools, spaces and conditions in the world to enable connections with other people • Designs on Serendipity: acting out scenarios of serendipity tools. Examples: The serendipity object creator, The ideas sharer, A graffiti pen, A behaviour monitor, The post-production lever, An online play-room, In-flight connection-maker Classification of the features and affordances of examples have informed designs for technologies for scenarios for SerenA in a public context. Make new connection (involving a mix of chance of and insight) Project potential value of outcome Exploit connection Valuable, unanticipated outcome Reflect on value of outcome Reflect on role of chance and outcome in making a connection Consider as serendipity In the context of our empirically based finding in research we define Serendipity as: ‘a mix of chance and insight that leads to a valuable, unanticipated outcome’ D E V E L O P I N G A N D I M P L E M E N T I NG T E C H N O L O G I E S AGENT FRAMEWORK SerenA will develop an agent framework • A community of SerenA agents for • data queries • intelligent reasoning • managing user permissions and privacy • Distributed across the web A communication language for SerenA agents • transparent communication between agents • using emerging standards • FIPA standard with RDF content A growing agent community → increased potential for serendipitous discovery. SEMANTIC USER PROFILE BASE SerenA will develop Semantic User Profiles • RDF data model • OWL ontologies • URIs to identify people, concepts, properties, metadata. LINKED OPEN DATA SerenA will access Linked Open Data • public knowledge bases on the web • richly structured • freely available • rapidly growing. NATURAL LANGUAGE UNDERSTANDING to respect researchers’ interests, goals and intentions. An iterative process of development and evaluation, integrating human-technology and design-centred approaches to: • refine the understanding of serendipity • engage practioners and the public with the SerenA model of serendipity in ‘Serendipity Salons’ • prototype novel interfaces to support chance encounters • develop linked open data with partners and Cultural Stakeholders. • develop technologies that identify promising connections • deliver innovative serendipitous encounters mediated by technology. A STUDY RCUK DIGITAL ECONOMY SUMMER SCHOOL, LANCASTER UNIVERSITY Mapping Connections in Real Time. July 2011 Aim: A study to explore the potential of a social network technology as a demonstrator of the types of information that might be displayed on a large screen. Method: Three data visualisations were employed: two driven by twitter API search and one by a prototype system TAUCONS (Twitter Analysis and User CONnection System). Follow-up interviews with people in a conference context used the visualisations as a probe and were not focused solely on twitter technology specifically. User feedback and evaluation: • attitudes to data sharing and privacy • the use of technologies such as twitter to promote serendipity • opportunities for data visualization • attitudes towards the concept of technology-enabled serendipity. Conclusions: Technologies, and the public display of real time data through social networking systems offer potential for encouraging serendipity. However, the usable interactions and value needs to be designed and managed appropriately if such a system is to have a novel and positive impact on research ideas, thoughts and outcomes. “ ”
Transcript of UNDERSTANDING SERENDIPITY TO INFORM NOVEL …rs46/posters/de2011.pdfresearch • the development of...
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS:Thanks to all those who participated in workshops and interviews.
This work is funded and supported by SerenA Digital Economy Research (EP/H042741/1) and Horizon Digital Economy Research (RCUK grant EP/G065802/1). The Digital Economy Programme is a Research Councils UK cross council initiative led by EPSRC and contributed to by AHRC, ESRC and MRC
Design by Vicky Hale at projectstuff
PROJECT PARTNERS:Dundee Contemporary Arts, Dundee, UKMediaCityUK, Salford, UK
Contact: Mel Woods, Principal InvestigatorDuncan of Jordanstone College of Art and Design, University of Dundee [email protected]
UNDERSTANDING SERENDIPITY TO INFORM NOVEL PROCESSES, METHODS AND TECHNOLOGIES FOR THE RESEARCHER
Mel Woods, Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art and Design, University of Dundee. [email protected]
Robert Stewart, Diana Bental & Ruth Aylett, Heriot Watt University. {r.stewart, d.s.bental, r.s.aylett}@ hw.ac.uk
Stephann Makri & Ann Blandford, UCL Interaction Centre, University College London. {s.makri,a.blandford}@ucl.ac.uk
Xu Sun & Sarah Sharples, School of Mechanical, Materials and Manufacturing Engineering, University of Nottingham. {sarah.sharples, xu sun}@nottingham.ac.uk
Jamie Forth & Geraint A. Wiggins, Goldsmiths, University of London. {j.forth, g.wiggins}@gold.ac.uk
Scott Piao & Jon Whittle, School of Computing and Communications, Lancaster University. {s.piao, j.n.whittle}@lancaster.ac.uk
Chance Encounters in the Space of Ideas
http://www.serena.ac.uk i_serena
AIMS
AN UNDERSTANDING OF SERENDIPITY
STORIES OF SERENDIPITYAn Urban Design researcher was thinking about
how to design a joint university faculty building for sustainability and architecture. The aim of the building design
was to ‘try to bring together’ researchers from the two related disciplines. The researcher wanted to design the movement within
the building to provide many different paths between rooms so that “you had to walk past a series of exhibitions and possible inspirations on
your way to your office every single day.” Whilst sitting in the studio and after a long day of thinking about how to design the building, the researcher stopped work to turn on the US news-based comedy programme ‘The Daily Show.’ - where the host makes fun of the news and talks to a guest towards the end of the show. In this particular programme, the chosen guest was a geologist who had found the wreckage of the RMS Titanic. When asked about his most significant (rather than best known) finding, the geologist described finding large ecosystems at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean where giant tubeworms had a symbiotic relationship with creatures that lived inside the tubeworms, where the creatures would capture sulphur that had escaped from the earth’s crust to each others benefit. The researcher found this description
particularly inspiring and translated the concept of the tubeworms’ symbiotic relationship with the creatures into a metaphor to guide
her building design. She used this metaphor to design the building based on a symbiotic, sustainable concept where
spaces within the building “live off each other” – where “if you had taken something and cut it off, you
were cutting off some of the life source.”
INTR
ODUCTION
Many scientific innovations have been
attributed to serendipity, the faculty of making and
recognising fortunate and unexpected discoveries by
accident. However, while there is a widespread acknowledgement that serendipity is a major contributor to innovation, there are no cohesive theories about serendipity or the design of technologies that may
facilitate it, furthermore there is disagreement as to whether
digital technologies promote or stifle it.
Designers and Artists’, have
experimented in practice with methods that seek to
engineer serendipity or chance investigations.
‘Surrealists’ and ‘Dadaists’ sought to juxtapose objects in new and unexpected ways. Guy Debord and the ‘Situationalists’ developed theories of the Derive or wander.
Improvisation theory and the gap between intention and outcome
are seen as crucial to the meaning of serendipity
and chance in art.
The SerenA project aims to establish subtle
and unknown connections between people, their research,
and the world around them.
The project is driven by the requirements of researchers to overcome the challenges of
discovering what they did not know they needed to know.
IMPL
EMEN
TING AND EVALUATING
A DIARY STUDYAim: To understand serendipity in information research Method: Eleven participations over one week used a mobile diary application developed on the Android mobile platform to allow participants to rapidly capture how serendipity happens and the context in which they experience serendipity. Output: Diary entries were discussed during post-study interviews. An Emergent Themes Analysis was conducted to understand the data.
SERENDIPITY STORIES Aim: To gain a rich understanding of researchers’ perceptions of their broad experiences of serendipity. Method: A study of semi-structured Critical Incident interviews with 28 researchers’ across different disciplines ranging from Architectural Design, to Computational Musicology, to Security and Crime Science.
The SerenA project focuses on:
• building an understanding of serendipity through empirical studies,
specifically within information discovery and research
• the development of a system to support and promote connections and information between people and ideas
• designing, implementing and evaluating technologies with novel approaches in
digital and physical spaces.
Discussions arising from the
workshops were a useful first step for
understanding the nature of serendipity and for providing the SerenA team with a reference tool for ‘looking back’ at our
initial understanding.
DIARY STUDY RESULTS:• key elements to support understanding of
serendipity• the influential role of context in serendipitous
experiences• a framework of understanding how serendipity
happens • the positive impacts of serendipity in people’s
information research.
The framework for classifying serendipity should consider:• aspects associated with the activity• the value of the information• the source of the information• the interaction between the context and individual.
FU
TURE WORK
WORKSHOP: MEDIATING CONNECTIONS: THE ROLE OF EMERGING TECHNOLOGIES IN TRANSFORMING AND PRESENTING INFORMATION AND IDEAS RCUK DIGITAL ECONOMY ALL HANDS/DIGITAL FUTURES CONFERENCEOctober 2010Workshop session 1:‘Integrating arts, engineering and interaction design: Requirements Gathering and Novel Approaches’.
Aim: To explore potential user requirements with researchers. Method: A 3-part workshop: • What is Serendipity?’• Your Serendipitous Future: future tools, spaces and conditions
in the world to enable connections with other people • Designs on Serendipity: acting out scenarios of serendipity
tools.Examples: The serendipity object creator, The ideas sharer, A graffiti pen, A behaviour monitor, The post-production lever, An online play-room, In-flight connection-maker
Classification of the features and affordances of examples have informed designs for technologies for scenarios for SerenA in a public context.
Make new connection (involving a mix of chance of and insight)
Project potential value of outcome
Exploit connection
Valuable, unanticipated outcome
Reflect on value of outcome
Reflect on role of chance and outcome in making a connection
Consider as serendipity
In the context of our empirically based finding in
research we define Serendipity as:
‘a mix of chance and insight that leads to a valuable, unanticipated
outcome’
DEV
ELOP
IN
G AND IMPLEMENTING TECHN
OLO
GIES
AGENT FRAMEWORKSerenA will develop an agent framework• A community of SerenA agents for
• data queries• intelligent reasoning• managing user permissions and
privacy• Distributed across the web
A communication language for SerenA agents• transparent communication between
agents• using emerging standards
• FIPA standard with RDF content
A growing agent community → increased potential for serendipitous discovery.
SEMANTIC USER PROFILE BASESerenA will develop Semantic User Profiles• RDF data model• OWL ontologies• URIs to identify people, concepts,
properties, metadata.
LINKED OPEN DATASerenA will access Linked Open Data• public knowledge bases on the web• richly structured• freely available• rapidly growing.
NATURAL LANGUAGE UNDERSTANDINGto respect researchers’ interests, goals and intentions.
An iterative process of development and evaluation, integrating human-technology and design-centred approaches to:
• refine the understanding of serendipity• engage practioners and the public with the
SerenA model of serendipity in ‘Serendipity Salons’
• prototype novel interfaces to support chance encounters
• develop linked open data with partners and Cultural Stakeholders.
• develop technologies that identify promising connections
• deliver innovative serendipitous encounters mediated by technology.
A STUDYRCUK DIGITAL ECONOMY SUMMER SCHOOL, LANCASTER UNIVERSITY Mapping Connections in Real Time. July 2011
Aim: A study to explore the potential of a social network technology as a demonstrator of the types of information that might be displayed on a large screen. Method: Three data visualisations were employed: two driven by twitter API search and one by a prototype system TAUCONS (Twitter Analysis and User CONnection System). Follow-up interviews with people in a conference context used the visualisations as a probe and were not focused solely on twitter technology specifically.User feedback and evaluation:• attitudes to data sharing and privacy• the use of technologies such as twitter to promote serendipity• opportunities for data visualization• attitudes towards the concept of technology-enabled serendipity. Conclusions: Technologies, and the public display of real time data through social networking systems offer potential for encouraging serendipity. However, the usable interactions and value needs to be designed and managed appropriately if such a system is to have a novel and positive impact on research ideas, thoughts and outcomes.
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