Isolate what makes it appealing to users and then design solutions that support social navigation from this basis. The project will achieve these aims by using a wide variety of methods of investigation including ethnographically-based approaches to studying navigation in the real world and experimental studies of users navigating in information spaces. Our results will have an impact on the design of the navigational aspects of information spaces. The aim is to bring social navigation on the agenda as one possible design solution for how to help users. The issue of how users can navigate their way through large information spaces is crucial to the ever expanding and interlinking of computer systems.
Computer users live in a world of information spaces.
One of the most critical activities which users need to undertake is to retrieve information from such spaces and thus the problem of how to help the user to navigate, explore and identify the objects of interest is critical to the success of the system. The existing means for aiding users in finding information is based on cognitively highly demanding information retrieval techniques. We shall explore existing knowledge of navigation as well as investigate a new approach to navigation, based on a personalised and social navigational paradigm. When exploring the existing knowledge, we shall compile a framework that can serve as a basis for a method that guides the design of and evaluates the effectiveness of navigational aspects of system design. When investigating the new approach to navigation, we are inspired by what people actually do when they search for information.