Information Foraging & Information Scent:
Theory, Models, and Applications

Aim of this Talk

Human-Information Interaction:
Can approach from user or producer side

Overview

Motivations & origins

Pressures of the information environment

Pressures of the information environment

Pressures of the information environment

WWW challenges HCI theory

Information Foraging Theory

Take concept of informavores seriously

Time scales of analysis

Example: Scatter/Gather

Example: Scatter/Gather

information scent

Scatter/Gather

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Scatter/Gather task

information scent

spreading activation

spreading activation networks
(for modeling “scent”)

interface provides good scent of underlying document clustering

Summary: Information Scent

Example: Scatter/Gather

cost/value estimates

foraging evaluations

Cluster selection (optimal diet model)

enrichment v exploitation

Example: Scatter/Gather

Model-Tracing Method

ACT-IF production system

production rule evaluations

Model predicts user action

Example: Scatter/Gather

Evaluation by user simulation

Summary: Scatter/Gather

Overview

WIF-ACT

Instrumentation

WebLogger Event File

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Study

Analysis

Information structure

Problem space structure

Web Behavior Graph

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Information scent & leaving a site

WWW Study Summary

Overview

Usability gurus tout information scent key to good WWW design

UI research on better link summaries

Information scent and large-scale Web use regularities

Inverse Gaussian Distribution

surfers at each level

Surfing as Brownian motion
(or real option)

Phase shifts in search costs

Information scent and the cost of search
(based on Hogg & Huberman, 1987)

Phase shifts in search regime due to information scent

Information scent controls

Applications

Web User Flow by Information Scent

inferring user goal

Conclusion:
Information foraging & Information scent