Beyond Searching: Understanding How People Use Search to Support Their Creative Endeavors

Creativity is an essential part of people's daily life and work across a range of everyday tasks. However, little prior work has explored how people use search engines and information resources as part of their creative processes, and how systems might better support users' information needs when working on tasks that involve creative endeavors. In this dissertation research, I sought to investigate the types of information seeking tools and strategies that people currently use in practice when they engage in projects that involve everyday creativity. The dissertation includes two parts. In the first part, an online survey with 175 participants was conducted to get a general understanding of how people use search engines and other existing information tools to support their everyday creativity tasks, the types of creative process stages that are involved in their tasks, and how they use different tools to support different creative stages. To get a deeper understanding of people's behaviors and their creative processes, in the second part, I conducted a two-week diary study to investigate users' in-situ search behaviors in their design-related projects from different perspectives (e.g., types of information sought in a project, intents to use the information found online, strategies of using different resources or tools in creative processes, and challenges encountered in creative processes). At the end of this dissertation, I discuss the implications of this research and provide recommendations for future research and the future design of search systems.Doctor of Philosoph

Exploratory search in time-oriented primary data

In a variety of research fields, primary data that describes scientific phenomena in an original condition is obtained. Time-oriented primary data, in particular, is an indispensable data type, derived from complex measurements depending on time. Today, time-oriented primary data is collected at rates that exceed the domain experts’ abilities to seek valuable information undiscovered in the data. It is widely accepted that the magnitudes of uninvestigated data will disclose tremendous knowledge in data-driven research, provided that domain experts are able to gain insight into the data. Domain experts involved in data-driven research urgently require analytical capabilities. In scientific practice, predominant activities are the generation and validation of hypotheses. In analytical terms, these activities are often expressed in confirmatory and exploratory data analysis. Ideally, analytical support would combine the strengths of both types of activities. Exploratory search (ES) is a concept that seamlessly includes information-seeking behaviors ranging from search to exploration. ES supports domain experts in both gaining an understanding of huge and potentially unknown data collections and the drill-down to relevant subsets, e.g., to validate hypotheses. As such, ES combines predominant tasks of domain experts applied to data-driven research. For the design of useful and usable ES systems (ESS), data scientists have to incorporate different sources of knowledge and technology. Of particular importance is the state-of-the-art in interactive data visualization and data analysis. Research in these factors is at heart of Information Visualization (IV) and Visual Analytics (VA). Approaches in IV and VA provide meaningful visualization and interaction designs, allowing domain experts to perform the information-seeking process in an effective and efficient way. Today, bestpractice ESS almost exclusively exist for textual data content, e.g., put into practice in digital libraries to facilitate the reuse of digital documents. For time-oriented primary data, ES mainly remains at a theoretical state. Motivation and Problem Statement. This thesis is motivated by two main assumptions. First, we expect that ES will have a tremendous impact on data-driven research for many research fields. In this thesis, we focus on time-oriented primary data, as a complex and important data type for data-driven research. Second, we assume that research conducted to IV and VA will particularly facilitate ES. For time-oriented primary data, however, novel concepts and techniques are required that enhance the design and the application of ESS. In particular, we observe a lack of methodological research in ESS for time-oriented primary data. In addition, the size, the complexity, and the quality of time-oriented primary data hampers the content-based access, as well as the design of visual interfaces for gaining an overview of the data content. Furthermore, the question arises how ESS can incorporate techniques for seeking relations between data content and metadata to foster data-driven research. Overarching challenges for data scientists are to create usable and useful designs, urgently requiring the involvement of the targeted user group and support techniques for choosing meaningful algorithmic models and model parameters. Throughout this thesis, we will resolve these challenges from conceptual, technical, and systemic perspectives. In turn, domain experts can benefit from novel ESS as a powerful analytical support to conduct data-driven research. Concepts for Exploratory Search Systems (Chapter 3). We postulate concepts for the ES in time-oriented primary data. Based on a survey of analysis tasks supported in IV and VA research, we present a comprehensive selection of tasks and techniques relevant for search and exploration activities. The assembly guides data scientists in the choice of meaningful techniques presented in IV and VA. Furthermore, we present a reference workflow for the design and the application of ESS for time-oriented primary data. The workflow divides the data processing and transformation process into four steps, and thus divides the complexity of the design space into manageable parts. In addition, the reference workflow describes how users can be involved in the design. The reference workflow is the framework for the technical contributions of this thesis. Visual-Interactive Preprocessing of Time-Oriented Primary Data (Chapter 4). We present a visual-interactive system that enables users to construct workflows for preprocessing time-oriented primary data. In this way, we introduce a means of providing content-based access. Based on a rich set of preprocessing routines, users can create individual solutions for data cleansing, normalization, segmentation, and other preprocessing tasks. In addition, the system supports the definition of time series descriptors and time series distance measures. Guidance concepts support users in assessing the workflow generalizability, which is important for large data sets. The execution of the workflows transforms time-oriented primary data into feature vectors, which can subsequently be used for downstream search and exploration techniques. We demonstrate the applicability of the system in usage scenarios and case studies. Content-Based Overviews (Chapter 5). We introduce novel guidelines and techniques for the design of contentbased overviews. The three key factors are the creation of meaningful data aggregates, the visual mapping of these aggregates into the visual space, and the view transformation providing layouts of these aggregates in the display space. For each of these steps, we characterize important visualization and interaction design parameters allowing the involvement of users. We introduce guidelines supporting data scientists in choosing meaningful solutions. In addition, we present novel visual-interactive quality assessment techniques enhancing the choice of algorithmic model and model parameters. Finally, we present visual interfaces enabling users to formulate visual queries of the time-oriented data content. In this way, we provide means of combining content-based exploration with content-based search. Relation Seeking Between Data Content and Metadata (Chapter 6). We present novel visual interfaces enabling domain experts to seek relations between data content and metadata. These interfaces can be integrated into ESS to bridge analytical gaps between the data content and attached metadata. In three different approaches, we focus on different types of relations and define algorithmic support to guide users towards most interesting relations. Furthermore, each of the three approaches comprises individual visualization and interaction designs, enabling users to explore both the data and the relations in an efficient and effective way. We demonstrate the applicability of our interfaces with usage scenarios, each conducted together with domain experts. The results confirm that our techniques are beneficial for seeking relations between data content and metadata, particularly for data-centered research. Case Studies - Exploratory Search Systems (Chapter 7). In two case studies, we put our concepts and techniques into practice. We present two ESS constructed in design studies with real users, and real ES tasks, and real timeoriented primary data collections. The web-based VisInfo ESS is a digital library system facilitating the visual access to time-oriented primary data content. A content-based overview enables users to explore large collections of time series measurements and serves as a baseline for content-based queries by example. In addition, VisInfo provides a visual interface for querying time oriented data content by sketch. A result visualization combines different views of the data content and metadata with faceted search functionality. The MotionExplorer ESS supports domain experts in human motion analysis. Two content-based overviews enhance the exploration of large collections of human motion capture data from two perspectives. MotionExplorer provides a search interface, allowing domain experts to query human motion sequences by example. Retrieval results are depicted in a visual-interactive view enabling the exploration of variations of human motions. Field study evaluations performed for both ESS confirm the applicability of the systems in the environment of the involved user groups. The systems yield a significant improvement of both the effectiveness and the efficiency in the day-to-day work of the domain experts. As such, both ESS demonstrate how large collections of time-oriented primary data can be reused to enhance data-centered research. In essence, our contributions cover the entire time series analysis process starting from accessing raw time-oriented primary data, processing and transforming time series data, to visual-interactive analysis of time series. We present visual search interfaces providing content-based access to time-oriented primary data. In a series of novel explorationsupport techniques, we facilitate both gaining an overview of large and complex time-oriented primary data collections and seeking relations between data content and metadata. Throughout this thesis, we introduce VA as a means of designing effective and efficient visual-interactive systems. Our VA techniques empower data scientists to choose appropriate models and model parameters, as well as to involve users in the design. With both principles, we support the design of usable and useful interfaces which can be included into ESS. In this way, our contributions bridge the gap between search systems requiring exploration support and exploratory data analysis systems requiring visual querying capability. In the ESS presented in two case studies, we prove that our techniques and systems support data-driven research in an efficient and effective way

End-users\u27 perceptions : an exploration on the study of electronic resources

The introduction of technology into the quest for information stimulates a need to educate, instruct, and guide end-users in their ability to effectively manipulate various electronic resources (i e, online public access catalogs (OPAC), CD-ROM databases, and the Internet). A study from the end-user’s perspective was conducted at Emmanuel School of Religion, a graduate seminary, located in Johnson City, Tennessee to illustrate the need for end-user education. Over 80% of the end-users surveyed indicate a greater use of the Internet than to the Online Public Access Catalog (OPAC) and CD-ROM databases (American Theological Library Association (ATLA) and Religious and Theological Abstracts (RTA)). Respondents, in spite of the age of technology, continue to find human interaction, i.e., personal assistance from a librarian or another student to be a useful part of the instruction process. This study also reveals that many of the respondents do not use available help screens even though there is an active use of the electronic resource. = Suggestions to the information professional as to how they can develop programs geared toward end-user instruction are made based on the responses generated from the end-user’s perspective

Be Credible: Information Literacy for Journalism, Public Relations, Advertising and Marketing Students

This project was funded by KU Libraries’ Parent’s Campaign with support from the David Shulenburger Office of Scholarly Communication & Copyright and the Open Educational Resources Working Group in the University of Kansas Libraries.This free and open textbook teaches college-level journalism students to become information experts. Using the themes of credibility and information literacy, the book helps today’s students, who start out all their research with Google and Wikipedia, to specialize in accessing, evaluating, and managing information that often is not accessible through Google searches. The book includes chapters on public records, freedom of information requests, nonprofit organizations, for-profit companies, scholarly research, public data, interviews and more. Through current examples, instructional videos, suggested classroom activities, and practitioner insights, the authors challenge students to examine the credibility of the sources they use as current and future professional communicators

Engagement with Digital Behaviour Change Interventions: Conceptualisation, Measurement and Promotion

Digital behaviour change interventions (DBCIs) can help people change various health behaviours; however, engagement is low on average and there is a positive association of engagement with intervention effectiveness. The extent to which this relationship is confounded or subject to reverse causality is unclear, and evidence-based models of how to promote engagement are lacking. Progress is hindered by the existence of multiple definitions and measures of engagement; this hampers attempts to aggregate data in meta-analyses. Using smartphone applications (apps) for smoking cessation and alcohol reduction as case studies, this thesis investigated how to conceptualise and measure engagement and identified factors that influence engagement with DBCIs in general, and with apps for smoking cessation and alcohol reduction in particular. Six studies using qualitative and quantitative methods were conducted. Study 1 was a systematic, interdisciplinary literature review, which synthesised existing conceptualisations and generated an integrative definition of engagement with behavioural and experiential dimensions, and a conceptual framework of factors that influence engagement with DBCIs. Studies 3 and 4 involved the development and evaluation of a self-report measure of the behavioural and experiential dimensions of engagement. Studies 2, 5 and 6 used mixed-methods to identify factors that influence engagement with apps for smoking cessation and alcohol reduction. Engagement with DBCIs can usefully be defined in both behavioural and experiential terms: the self-report measure demonstrated promising psychometric properties and was underpinned by two distinct factors, labelled ‘Experiential Engagement’ and ‘Behavioural Engagement’. Design features that support users’ motivation to change, foster their beliefs about the perceived usefulness and relevance of the technology, and spark their interest were found to be most important in the promotion of engagement with apps for smoking cessation and alcohol reduction. These findings can be used to inform the design of new, or modification of existing, apps for these behaviours

Transforming Conservation

There are severe problems with the decision-making processes currently widely used, leading to ineffective use of evidence, faulty decisions, wasting of resources and the erosion of public and political support. In this book an international team of experts provide solutions. The transformation suggested includes rethinking how evidence is assessed, combined, communicated and used in decision-making; using effective methods when asking experts to make judgements (i.e. avoiding just asking an expert or a group of experts!); using a structured process for making decisions that incorporate the evidence and having effective processes for learning from actions. In each case, the specific problem with decision making is described with a range of practical solutions. Adopting this approach to decision-making requires societal change so detailed suggestions are made for transforming organisations, governments, businesses, funders and philanthropists. The practical suggestions include twelve downloadable checklists. The vision of the authors is to transform conservation so it is more effective, more cost-efficient, learns from practice and is more attractive to funders. However, the lessons of this important book go well beyond conservation to decision-makers in any field

The Rehabilitation Effectiveness for Activities for Life (REAL) study: a national programme of research into NHS inpatient mental health rehabilitation services across England

Background: The REAL (Rehabilitation Effectiveness for Activities for Life) research programme, funded by the National Institute for Heath Research (NIHR) from 2009 to 2015, investigated NHS mental health rehabiliation services across England. The users of these services are people with longer-term, complex mental health problems, such as schizophrenia, who have additional problems that complicate recovery. Although only around 10% of people with severe mental illness require inpatient rehabilitation, because of the severity and complexity of their problems they cost 25–50% of the total mental health budget. Despite this, there has been little research to help clinicians and commissioners to plan and deliver effective treatments and services. This research aimed to address this gap. Methods: The programme had four phases. (1) A national survey, using quantitative and qualitative methods, was used to provide a detailed understanding of the scope and quality of NHS mental health rehabilitation services in England and the characteristics of those who use them. (2) We developed a training intervention for staff of NHS inpatient mental health rehabilitation units to facilitate service users’ activities. (3) The clinical effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of the staff training programme was evaluated through a cluster randomised controlled trial involving 40 units that scored below average on our quality assessment tool in the national survey. A qualitative process evaluation and a realistic evaluation were carried out to inform our findings further. (4) A naturalistic cohort study was carried out involving 349 service users of 50 units that scored above average on our quality assessment tool in the national survey, who were followed up over 12 months. Factors associated with better clinical outcomes were investigated through exploratory analyses. Results: Most NHS trusts provided inpatient mental health rehabilitation services. The quality of care provided was higher than that in similar facilities across Europe and was positively associated with service users’ autonomy. Our cluster trial did not find our staff training intervention to be clinically effective [coefficient 1.44, 95% confidence interval (CI) –1.35 to 4.24]; staff appeared to revert to previous practices once the training team left the unit. Our realistic review suggested that greater supervision and senior staff support could help to address this. Over half of the service users in our cohort study were successfully discharged from hospital over 12 months. Factors associated with this were service users’ activity levels [odds ratio (OR) 1.03, 95% CI 1.01 to 1.05] and social skills (OR 1.13, 95% CI 1.04 to 1.24), and the ‘recovery’ orientation of the unit (OR 1.04, 95% CI 1.00 to 1.08), which includes collaborative care planning with service users and holding hope for their progress. Quality of care was not associated with costs of care. A relatively small investment (£67 per service user per month) was required to achieve the improvement in everyday functioning that we found in our cohort study. Conclusions: People who require inpatient mental health rehabilitation are a ‘low-volume, high-needs’ group. Despite this, these services are able to successfully discharge most to the community within 18 months. Our results suggest that this may be facilitated by recovery-orientated practice that promotes service users’ activities and social skills. Further research is needed to identify effective interventions that enhance such practice to deliver these outcomes. Our research provides evidence that NHS inpatient mental health rehabilitation services deliver high-quality care that successfully supports service users with complex needs in their recovery. Main limitation: Our programme included only NHS, non-secure, inpatient mental health rehabilitation services. Trial registration: Current Controlled Trials ISRCTN25898179. Funding: The NIHR Programme Grants for Applied Research programme

Transforming Conservation

There are severe problems with the decision-making processes currently widely used, leading to ineffective use of evidence, faulty decisions, wasting of resources and the erosion of public and political support. In this book an international team of experts provide solutions. The transformation suggested includes rethinking how evidence is assessed, combined, communicated and used in decision-making; using effective methods when asking experts to make judgements (i.e. avoiding just asking an expert or a group of experts!); using a structured process for making decisions that incorporate the evidence and having effective processes for learning from actions. In each case, the specific problem with decision making is described with a range of practical solutions. Adopting this approach to decision-making requires societal change so detailed suggestions are made for transforming organisations, governments, businesses, funders and philanthropists. The practical suggestions include twelve downloadable checklists. The vision of the authors is to transform conservation so it is more effective, more cost-efficient, learns from practice and is more attractive to funders. However, the lessons of this important book go well beyond conservation to decision-makers in any field