Stephann Makri

Coming across information serendipitously - Part 1: A process model

Purpose – This research seeks to gain a detailed understanding of how researchers come across information serendipitously, grounded in real‐world examples. This research was undertaken to enrich the theoretical understanding of this slippery phenomenon.Design/methodology/approach – Semi‐structured critical incident interviews were conducted with 28 interdisciplinary researchers. Interviewees were asked to discuss memorable examples of coming across information serendipitously from their research or everyday life. The data collection and analysis process followed many of the core principles of grounded theory methodology.Findings – The examples provided were varied, but shared common elements (they involved a mix of unexpectedness and insight and led to a valuable, unanticipated outcome). These elements form part of an empirically grounded process model of serendipity. In this model, a new connection is made that involves a mix of unexpectedness and insight and has the potential to lead to a valuable outco...

“Making my own luck”: Serendipity strategies and how to support them in digital information environments

Serendipity occurs when unexpected circumstances and an “aha” moment of insight result in a valuable, unanticipated outcome. Designing digital information environments to support serendipity can not only provide users with new knowledge, but also propel them in directions they might not otherwise have traveled in—surprising and delighting them along the way. As serendipity involves unexpected circumstances it cannot be directly controlled, but it can be potentially influenced. However, to the best of our knowledge, no previous work has focused on providing a rich empirical understanding of how it might be influenced. We interviewed 14 creative professionals to identify their self‐reported strategies aimed at increasing the likelihood of serendipity. These strategies form a framework for examining ways existing digital environments support serendipity and for considering how future environments can create opportunities for it. This is a new way of thinking about how to design for serendipity; by supporting the strategies found to increase its likelihood rather than attempting to support serendipity as a discrete phenomenon, digital environments not only have the potential to help users experience serendipity but also encourage them to adopt the strategies necessary to experience it more often.

Encouraging serendipity in interactive systems

We regularly make serendipitous discoveries in both online and offline contexts - from stumbling upon a useful website when searching for something completely different to meeting someone with mutual research or business interests in an unlikely place. However, most existing interactive systems do not provide a fertile environment for serendipity to occur. This workshop will identify key requirements and research challenges for designing and evaluating user-centred systems that aim to encourage serendipity.

Observing serendipity in digital information environments

We often interact with digital information environments to find useful information. But sometimes useful information finds us unexpectedly, propelling us in new and exciting directions. We might come across information serendipitously when looking for information on something else, or when we are not looking for anything in particular. In previous studies, people have self‐reported that they come across information serendipitously. However, there has been limited success in directly observing people doing so. To see if we could have more success, we conducted naturalistic observations of 45 users interacting with different types of digital information environments. Without priming them about serendipity, we asked the users to conduct self‐chosen naturalistic information tasks, which varied from broad tasks such as browsing online news to narrow tasks such as finding a particular product to buy. We noted several examples where users either 1) stated they were looking for information on a particular topic or product and unexpectedly found useful/potentially useful information about something else or 2) unexpectedly found useful/potentially useful information when not looking for anything in particular. Our findings suggest that, with a carefully‐considered approach, serendipity‐related information interaction behaviour can be directly observed. Direct observation allows designers of digital information environments to better understand this behaviour and use this understanding to reason about ways of designing new or improving existing support for serendipity.

Research perspectives on serendipity and information encountering

Serendipitous discovery has been a research topic for more than one hundred years, but only recently has it been the focus of attention in library and information science (LIS). In 1960, Bernier published the first article on serendipity in a LIS journal. The number of publications gradually grew until 1990s, after which the field experienced a significant interest by the LIS researchers. Currently, LIS researchers are studying serendipity and information encountering from different perspectives, ranging from analyzing various conceptual frameworks to conducting bibliometric studies and investigating factors that trigger and affect the phenomenon. The panel of experts will discuss the issues and challenges of conducting research in this new field of study in LIS.

Prioritisation, Resources and Search Terms: A Study of Decision-Making at the Virtual Reference Desk

The reinterpretation of the traditional reference service in an online context is the virtual reference desk. Placing reference services into an online setting, however, presents many challenges. We report a study and analytic framework which addresses support for decision-making during virtual enquiry work. Focusing on specialist law-libraries, the study shows that enquirers do not volunteer important information to the service and that asynchronous communication media and some social obstacles present barriers to prompting. Also, previous enquiries are frequently used to inform current enquiry strategies but barriers exist in accessing this information. We conclude that email is an inadequate medium for supporting virtual reference services, and that system should support automatic, speculative matching between new enquiry content and integrated enquiry knowledge bases. The contribution of the framework is to offer a structured approach to evaluation in multiple virtual reference contexts and enable rapid convergence on barriers to efficient and effective service.

Introducing the RSDiary App for the Collection of Resilience Strategies

Drawing from the fields of human computer interaction (HCI) and resilience engineering, researchers have begun to take an interest in the emerging topic of cognitive resilience strategies. These comprise behavioural interventions and tactics that people adopt to foresee and mitigate threats such as error, and maintain performance. In order to validate conceptual frameworks resulting from analysis of these resilience strategies, and as a development of a previously undertaken traditional diary study, we have developed the RSDiary app for collecting such strategies. In this poster-demo, we introduce the notion of cognitive resilience strategies, present the RSDiary app, outline the process that led to its inception, and discuss the potential contributions of the tool itself, and of the data resulting from it.

Keeping up with the law: investigating lawyers' monitoring behaviour

Purpose – The authors wanted to provide an enriched understanding of how lawyers keep up-to-date with legal developments. Maintaining awareness of developments in an area (known as “monitoring”) is an important aspect of professional’s information work. This is particularly true for lawyers, who are expected to keep up-to-date with legal developments on an ongoing basis. Design/methodology/approach – The authors conducted semi-structured interviews with a group of lawyers who authored and published current awareness content for LexisNexis – a large publishing organisation. The interviews focused on identifying the types of electronic, printed and people-based current awareness resources the lawyers used to keep up-to-date with legal developments and the reasons for their choices. Findings – The lawyers mostly used electronic resources (particularly e-mail alerts and an electronic tool that alerted them to changes in website content), alongside interpersonal sources, such as colleagues, customers and profe...

How local government policy workers use information: An interview study and design recommendations

Most information behaviour research focuses on information seeking and stops short of looking at what people do with information after they have found it. Furthermore, the information behaviour of local government policy workers has not been widely studied. We conducted semi-structured interviews with local government policy workers from UK local authorities and local government organisations. This was with the aim of examining how these policy workers use information to prepare documents. During the interviews, we asked the policy workers to demonstrate how they extracted information from source documents and how they made use of it. We found that the document preparation process involved three key phases: (1) information management (storing and recording information retrieved online for later use), (2) writing and editing (extracting information from source material and using it to support the writing process), and (3) review and sign-off (managing an iterative process of obtaining feedback from multiple stakeholders and making amendments). We discuss key challenges the interviewees faced during each of these phases and make recommendations for the design of future digital information environments aimed at providing holistic support for local government policy workers’ information use behaviour.

After serendipity strikes: Creating value from encountered information: After Serendipity Strikes: Creating Value from Encountered Information

Existing research into serendipitous information encountering has focused on how people stumble upon information, rather than how they create value from the information encountered. This online diary study with follow‐up interviews provides an enriched understanding of the subjective value of information encounters and the motivators, barriers and actions involved in creating value from them. We leverage our findings to generate design suggestions for digital information tools aimed at assisting in creating value from encountered information.