Output details
34 - Art and Design: History, Practice and Theory
University of Dundee
The Semantic Sketchbook for Serendipitous Thinking in Research. (Android App. Beta tested 2012. Public download Nov 2013)
The Semantic Notebook derives from SerenA (£1.87M RCUK project), that creates opportunities for serendipity by applying an empirical understanding of the term to prototype interactive systems that connect researchers to other researchers and resources, to discover things they ‘did not know they needed to know.’
The semantic sketchbook is a Google Android smartphone app that uses the paradigm of a physical notebook (commonly used by creative professionals) to support digital note-taking in the form of text, image, drawing and sound.
It is a platform for conceptualising how notebooks and sketchbooks create a longitudinal approach to fermentation of ideas, conducive to supporting 7 actions: varying routines, being observant, making mental space, relaxing boundaries, drawing on previous experiences, looking for patterns and seizing opportunities.
The notebook concept and UI is underpinned by the development of an empirically-grounded process model of serendipity to identify key parts of the process where design has been applied to the design to aid users' perceptions and realisation of serendipitous connections. A semantic reasoning system underpins the app to present potentially serendipitous suggestions to users as notifications, based on its understanding of the individual researcher user through their input of content, as well as to a user model through external data sources (e.g. a Twitter ID or a webpage with a list of publications).
The research is written up in publications:
Maxwell, D., Woods, M., (2012) ‘Encouraging Reflexivity in Mobile Interactions’. CHArt 28TH Annual Conference, London, Nov. 2012.
Woods. M, Maxwell D, Makri. S, Bental D, Kefalidou G, Sharples S (2012), ‘Designing a Semantic Sketchbook to Create Opportunities for Serendipity’ Work in Progress Paper. British Computer Society HCI. Birmingham.
Bental, D., Stewart, R., Aylett, R., Maxwell, D., Woods, M. (2012) ‘Exposing Connections to Support Serendipitous Discovery’. Symposium on Influencing People with Information, April 25, 2012, Aberdeen, UK.
