Exploratory Browsing

In recent years the digital media has influenced many areas of our
life. The transition from analogue to digital has substantially
changed our ways of dealing with media collections. Today‟s
interfaces for managing digital media mainly offer fixed linear
models corresponding to the underlying technical concepts (folders,
events, albums, etc.), or the metaphors borrowed from the analogue
counterparts (e.g., stacks, film rolls). However, people‟s mental
interpretations of their media collections often go beyond the
scope of linear scan. Besides explicit search with specific goals,
current interfaces can not sufficiently support the explorative and
often non-linear behavior. This dissertation presents an
exploration of interface design to enhance the browsing experience
with media collections. The main outcome of this thesis is a new
model of Exploratory Browsing to guide the design of interfaces to
support the full range of browsing activities, especially the
Exploratory Browsing. We define Exploratory Browsing as the
behavior when the user is uncertain about her or his targets and
needs to discover areas of interest (exploratory), in which she or
he can explore in detail and possibly find some acceptable items
(browsing). According to the browsing objectives, we group browsing
activities into three categories: Search Browsing, General Purpose
Browsing and Serendipitous Browsing. In the context of this thesis,
Exploratory Browsing refers to the latter two browsing activities,
which goes beyond explicit search with specific objectives. We
systematically explore the design space of interfaces to support
the Exploratory Browsing experience. Applying the methodology of
User-Centered Design, we develop eight prototypes, covering two
main usage contexts of browsing with personal collections and in
online communities. The main studied media types are photographs
and music. The main contribution of this thesis lies in deepening
the understanding of how people‟s exploratory behavior has an
impact on the interface design. This thesis contributes to the
field of interface design for media collections in several aspects.
With the goal to inform the interface design to support the
Exploratory Browsing experience with media collections, we present
a model of Exploratory Browsing, covering the full range of
exploratory activities around media collections. We investigate
this model in different usage contexts and develop eight
prototypes. The substantial implications gathered during the
development and evaluation of these prototypes inform the further
refinement of our model: We uncover the underlying transitional
relations between browsing activities and discover several
stimulators to encourage a fluid and effective activity transition.
Based on this model, we propose a catalogue of general interface
characteristics, and employ this catalogue as criteria to analyze
the effectiveness of our prototypes. We also present several
general suggestions for designing interfaces for media collections.