Comments on: Serendipity: Beyond Recommendation http://johnnyholland.org/2011/08/serendipity-beyond-recommendation/ It's all about interaction Wed, 05 Jun 2013 06:03:21 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3 By: Creative Toppings | The coolhunter and the interaction designer http://johnnyholland.org/2011/08/serendipity-beyond-recommendation/#comment-119633 Creative Toppings | The coolhunter and the interaction designer Sat, 24 Nov 2012 13:57:02 +0000 http://johnnyholland.org/?p=11323#comment-119633 [...] THEORY-BASED INTERACTION DESIGN, APPLIED TO SERENDIPITOUS INFORMATION RETRIEVAL Lidewij Edelkoort Serendipity: Beyond Recommendation  Tweet Related [...] [...] THEORY-BASED INTERACTION DESIGN, APPLIED TO SERENDIPITOUS INFORMATION RETRIEVAL Lidewij Edelkoort Serendipity: Beyond Recommendation  Tweet Related [...]

]]> By: The Rise of the Recommendation Engine: Man vs. Machine | The Cloud and Compass - a digital creative agency http://johnnyholland.org/2011/08/serendipity-beyond-recommendation/#comment-117322 The Rise of the Recommendation Engine: Man vs. Machine | The Cloud and Compass - a digital creative agency Mon, 31 Oct 2011 17:27:44 +0000 http://johnnyholland.org/?p=11323#comment-117322 [...] Is serendipity beyond recommendation engines? [...] [...] Is serendipity beyond recommendation engines? [...]

]]> By: Mikej http://johnnyholland.org/2011/08/serendipity-beyond-recommendation/#comment-117315 Mikej Fri, 09 Sep 2011 09:47:44 +0000 http://johnnyholland.org/?p=11323#comment-117315 huge fan of this at the moment seems like a lot of people are discussing it which is great... bring back a little serendipity i say wrote a similar piece here http://thingsdonotchangewechange.blogspot.com/2011/06/have-we-lost-our-love-of-serendipity.html huge fan of this at the moment

seems like a lot of people are discussing it which is great… bring back a little serendipity i say

wrote a similar piece here
http://thingsdonotchangewechange.blogspot.com/2011/06/have-we-lost-our-love-of-serendipity.html

]]> By: Pedro Fernandes http://johnnyholland.org/2011/08/serendipity-beyond-recommendation/#comment-117314 Pedro Fernandes Tue, 30 Aug 2011 16:40:42 +0000 http://johnnyholland.org/?p=11323#comment-117314 Thanks for your comments everyone, Tyler that's a great question, when to introduce serendipity. I think it depends greatly on context and use cases, I'm not sure we would want Google itself to add a lot of serendipity to their results, but for example on product catalogues or news sites it could be benefitial to have a serendipitous results box alongside traditional search results. Francis, I imagine scientists are a tough crowd to sell serendipity to, you probably know from experience they're mostly interested in cold hard facts. Again it will depend on specific situations and use cases, say if you're searching research papers on a certain topic and you have a suggestions box with other types of articles related to the query in some way. They probably won't want to know about Johnny Hallyday :-) Wolfram Alpha or Autonomy come to mind when you mention text mining and analysis, but there's a huge effort behind the scenes to make those approaches work. Shaun, yes Eli Pariser does a great job of highlighting the effects of echo chambers, let's see how things evolve, there's plenty to do in this area. Thanks for your comments everyone, Tyler that’s a great question, when to introduce serendipity. I think it depends greatly on context and use cases, I’m not sure we would want Google itself to add a lot of serendipity to their results, but for example on product catalogues or news sites it could be benefitial to have a serendipitous results box alongside traditional search results.

Francis, I imagine scientists are a tough crowd to sell serendipity to, you probably know from experience they’re mostly interested in cold hard facts. Again it will depend on specific situations and use cases, say if you’re searching research papers on a certain topic and you have a suggestions box with other types of articles related to the query in some way. They probably won’t want to know about Johnny Hallyday :-)
Wolfram Alpha or Autonomy come to mind when you mention text mining and analysis, but there’s a huge effort behind the scenes to make those approaches work.

Shaun, yes Eli Pariser does a great job of highlighting the effects of echo chambers, let’s see how things evolve, there’s plenty to do in this area.

]]> By: Shaun Tollerton http://johnnyholland.org/2011/08/serendipity-beyond-recommendation/#comment-117313 Shaun Tollerton Wed, 10 Aug 2011 15:04:12 +0000 http://johnnyholland.org/?p=11323#comment-117313 Great article. Better serendipity in services is almost inevitable and I'm sure Google are all over it, especially after Eli Pariser's TED talk on ‘Beware online "filter bubbles"’ – http://on.ted.com/9YJS (which has now had over 1 million views). Great article. Better serendipity in services is almost inevitable and I’m sure Google are all over it, especially after Eli Pariser’s TED talk on ‘Beware online “filter bubbles”’ – http://on.ted.com/9YJS (which has now had over 1 million views).

]]> By: Francis Rowland http://johnnyholland.org/2011/08/serendipity-beyond-recommendation/#comment-117312 Francis Rowland Thu, 04 Aug 2011 09:51:48 +0000 http://johnnyholland.org/?p=11323#comment-117312 It's good to see you expanding more on this subject, Pedro. I've been mulling it over a lot since your talk at UX Lisbon. At the moment, I am wondering about how important / appropriate serendipitous search would be for my scientist colleagues. It isn't the norm at the moment - people usually know exactly what they are searching for, and want to get straight to it. But what if we had a search system that could inject serendipity? would that be any use? Is it appropriate to discover things at this stage, or should that only be part of deeper research? And then I also think about text mining and analysis, and the potential for discovery there... but I will leave that to my friend, Anna Divoli. That's her territory! :) Thanks again for the article (and hey - Johnny Hallyday doesn't get mentioned on interaction blogs often, I bet!) It’s good to see you expanding more on this subject, Pedro. I’ve been mulling it over a lot since your talk at UX Lisbon.

At the moment, I am wondering about how important / appropriate serendipitous search would be for my scientist colleagues. It isn’t the norm at the moment – people usually know exactly what they are searching for, and want to get straight to it.

But what if we had a search system that could inject serendipity? would that be any use? Is it appropriate to discover things at this stage, or should that only be part of deeper research?

And then I also think about text mining and analysis, and the potential for discovery there… but I will leave that to my friend, Anna Divoli. That’s her territory! :)

Thanks again for the article (and hey – Johnny Hallyday doesn’t get mentioned on interaction blogs often, I bet!)

]]> By: Tyler Tate http://johnnyholland.org/2011/08/serendipity-beyond-recommendation/#comment-117311 Tyler Tate Wed, 03 Aug 2011 17:20:11 +0000 http://johnnyholland.org/?p=11323#comment-117311 Thanks for writing this Pedro -- I think that serendipity (or lack thereof) is one of the biggest challenges our industry currently faces. Thanks for highlighting it! I DO think that your VOD catalog is a good example of introducing serendipity into the information seeking process. You don't mention it by name, but it's really an instance of *faceted navigation,* which I think makes search much more exploratory than do pure textual queries as on Google. One question that isn't really addresse in the post is *when* should serendipity be a goal? There's good reason for Google to autocomplete on the most popular search terms -- if we're looking for a quick answer, it's often the popular that we're after. Other times, such as when trying to figure out where to go on vacation, you may be interested in a more exploratory, serendipitous approach. Thanks again for the well-written article! Thanks for writing this Pedro — I think that serendipity (or lack thereof) is one of the biggest challenges our industry currently faces. Thanks for highlighting it!

I DO think that your VOD catalog is a good example of introducing serendipity into the information seeking process. You don’t mention it by name, but it’s really an instance of *faceted navigation,* which I think makes search much more exploratory than do pure textual queries as on Google.

One question that isn’t really addresse in the post is *when* should serendipity be a goal? There’s good reason for Google to autocomplete on the most popular search terms — if we’re looking for a quick answer, it’s often the popular that we’re after. Other times, such as when trying to figure out where to go on vacation, you may be interested in a more exploratory, serendipitous approach.

Thanks again for the well-written article!

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