1. Ambient Findability Peter Morville - Information Architect - founder Semantic StudiosSemantic Studios Ambient Findability blog What does Ambient Findability mean to you?

2. Findability The quality of being locatable or navigable. The degree to which a particular object is easy to discover or locate. The degree to which a system or environment supports navigation and retrieval. These systems & objects need architecting to allow findability. Findability (information) literacy?

3. Lost & Found Information Access is expanding - Content - Availability - Technology - “an information-rich world with new possibilities and problems” (p3) What’s not information or ambient ? - What’s the life of desktop computing? - Notebook computing? How has your own information experience changed in the past few years? - Does findability change it? - What else might? Fun, Business, Education?

4. Findability & Wayfinding What is wayfinding? - How maps, addresses, signs & building/design conventions let us “know” where we are & how to get someplace else. (p17) Digital Wayfinding? - How sitemaps, URIs, icons & site/task conventions… Context is key - Location, location, location

5. Wayfinding technology Navigation tools Lighthouse Compass Chip log Sextant Chronometer Maps & Charts Paths - streets, paths Edges - walls, fences, doors Districts - sections Nodes - points of reference, transitions Landmarks - contextual for each of us

6. Wayfinding in the Noosphere? Is virtual wayfinding the same as in the real world? - What’s the real world again? Where are you when you talk on the phone? When you’re on the Web? Metaphors at play - Is it all about finding? As a goal? - Less about finding as discovering? Where’s the space for the Web? - But it’s not all about the Web is it? When the going gets mobile, your space does matter.

7. Information Retrieval & Findability How closely is IR related to (A)F? - Mooers - the trouble with IR The Information conundrum We wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for the Web - Visual navigation lets us apply real world metaphors to the Web That’s a great first step, but… - What changes does ambient information lead us to in the future? - How does relevance change?

8. Information Interaction Computational power makes interacting with information possible and easier - How “easy”? - Often too much of a good thing? Moving beyond the linear model - Berrypicking - Iterative models (state & context) - Complex inforation seeking models The Age of Broadband?

9. Wayfinding 2.0 We’re only beginning to understand the way to design information for ubiquitous interaction - What models of information use and mobility make the most sense to build upon? Techniques (context related) - Triangulation - Proximity - Scene analysis What about our context? - Habits, preferences, constraints

10. Findable Objects How can we work in concert with physical objects in an information landscape? - Give objects metadata that relates to their properties & context Is this a technology-driven manifest destiny? - GPS, RFID, URI, UPC, Sensor nets, nano-everything - How would each of the technologies change: Information access Information retrieval Findability and re-findability? If we have information overload now, what about with all this online, all the time?

11. Designing for Findability Findability precedes Usability In the Alphabet and on the Web You can’t use what you can’t find List of hacks on page 111-3

12. Sociosemantic Web How does the interaction change with increased access? - Increased content? - Increased speed? (fluidity) Is it people-based understanding vs. machine- based? - Metadata for us or machines? Why not both? This needs some serious architecting - Taxonomies - Ontologies - Folksonomies

13. Thinking about Findability What’s inspiring about these ideas? How would you use them? - As a designer or IA? - As a person? Do you think this is a new metaphor for the information seeking process? - What’s new about it? - What’s it building on top of? How would these principles & ideas influence your IA work?