Paths to more effective personal information management

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, 2011.Cataloged from PDF version of thesis.Includes bibliographical references (p. 256-272).With the widespread availability of digital tools for storing, accessing, and sharing information, why is so much information still lost, forgotten, or kept on paper? The work in this thesis finds that such disorganization results from problems in the designs of the personal information management (PIM) tools in common use today. Such problems impede information capture, force many information forms to be left out, and cause information to be forgotten. How can these problems be mitigated? Our Information Scraps study identifies the need to support more diverse kinds of information, while conserving time, attention, and memory for retained information items. Our first approach to achieving these goals is to eliminate the artificial separation and homogeneity that structured PIM tools impose, so that arbitrary information can be captured in any way desired. A two-year study of List-it, our short-note-taking tool, discovers that people keep notes serving 5 primary roles: reminders, reference items, progress trackers, places to think, and archives of personal value. The second reintroduces structured data to support more effective use and management of information collections. Jourknow addresses the manageability of large note collections with lightweight-structured note contents and contextual retrieval, the access of notes by the contexts and activities at the time of creation. Poyozo reinforces recollection of previously seen information, by providing visualizations of all of a person's past information activities. Finally, Atomate addresses the challenge of managing the ever-increasing deluge of new information, by letting people delegate to software behaviors actions to be automatically taken when new information arrives. These studies identify critical needs of PIM tools and offer viable solutions.by Max Goodwin Van Kleek.Ph.D

Minds Online: The Interface between Web Science, Cognitive Science, and the Philosophy of Mind

Alongside existing research into the social, political and economic impacts of the Web, there is a need to study the Web from a cognitive and epistemic perspective. This is particularly so as new and emerging technologies alter the nature of our interactive engagements with the Web, transforming the extent to which our thoughts and actions are shaped by the online environment. Situated and ecological approaches to cognition are relevant to understanding the cognitive significance of the Web because of the emphasis they place on forces and factors that reside at the level of agent–world interactions. In particular, by adopting a situated or ecological approach to cognition, we are able to assess the significance of the Web from the perspective of research into embodied, extended, embedded, social and collective cognition. The results of this analysis help to reshape the interdisciplinary configuration of Web Science, expanding its theoretical and empirical remit to include the disciplines of both cognitive science and the philosophy of mind

Design Research For Personal Information Management Systems To Support Undergraduate Students

This dissertation investigated the personal information management (PIM) behaviors and practices of undergraduate college students during a four month academic semester period. Qualitative data on the day-to-day PIM practices for 15 students enrolled in an honors biology class were collected through in-depth observations and interviews. Four students experimented with MyLifeBits--a next-generation PIM system developed at Microsoft Research. A participatory design session involving six students explored and identified new directions for PIM design. Analysis of the field data revealed that students engage regularly in project management activities, and their work is often highly collaborative. Students were observed to have difficulty with core PIM activities, such as managing tasks and reminders (and both PIM and technical skills vary widely among students). Students were observed to manage a diverse array of information formats, applications, and media, which are rarely integrated. Gaps in understanding and awareness among students and instructors were also noted. MyLifeBits was found to be intuitive and effective for visual browsing and refinding, although specific elements of the MyLifeBits user interface could likely be improved to support efficient task completion. The MyLifeBits system includes annotation, collection building, and other features that may support new approaches for making order and stimulating reflection. Observations of student usage suggested further design modifications to improve these features and supporting user interfaces. Implications for future research and design include: Incorporating social awareness and communication into PIM systems to help reduce gaps in understanding and facilitate reflection; integrating collaboration technologies into PIM systems to support students' highly collaborative work practices; providing tools to stimulate reflection (e.g., personal analytics) and create reflective artifacts (e.g., journals, multimedia scrapbooks); shifting the focus of design to outcomes (such as, "getting my assignment done on time, and in the way the teacher expects") that PIM supports rather than the PIM process itself; and developing ways to scaffold students' learning of PIM skills, such as metadata creation, project analysis and management, collaboration, and reflection

Smartphones as steady companions: device use in everyday life and the economics of attention

This thesis investigates smartphone use in naturally occurring contexts with a dataset comprising 200 hours of audio-visual first-person recordings from wearable cameras, and self-confrontation interview video footage (N = 41 users). The situated context in which smartphone use takes place has often been overlooked because of the technical difficulty of capturing context of use, actual action of users, and their subjective experience simultaneously. This research project contributes to filling this gap, with a detailed, mixed-methods analysis of over a thousand individual phone engagement behaviours (EB). We observe that (a) the smartphone is a key structuring element in the flow of daily activities. Participants report complex strategies on how they manage engaging with or avoiding their devices. (b) Unexpectedly, we find that the majority of EB (89%) are initiated by users, not devices; users engage with the phone roughly every five minutes regardless of the context they are in. (c) A large portion of EB seems to stem from contextual cues and an unconscious urge to pick up the device, even when there is no clear reason to do so. d) Participants are surprised about, and often unhappy with how frequently they mindlessly reach for the phone. Our in-depth analysis unveils several overlapping layers of motivations and triggers driving EB. Monitoring incoming notifications, managing time use, responding to social pressures, actually completing a task with the phone, design factors, unconscious urges, as well as the accessibility of the device, and most importantly its affordance for distraction all contribute to picking up the phone. This user drive for EB is used by providers to feed the attention economy. So far, keeping the smartphone outside of the visual field and immediate reach has appeared as the only efficient strategy to prevent overuse

The Role of the Home Environment in Early Weight Trajectories

Dramatic increases in the prevalence of overweight and obesity have prompted a focus on prevention. Weight is known to have a strong genetic basis, but the speed of change in rates of overweight and obesity against a relatively stable gene pool suggests that exposure to an ‘obesogenic’ environment is important. The home environment is thought to play a key role in early weight trajectories, providing an avenue for long-term obesity prevention. There is evidence for associations between various aspects of the home environment and energy-balance behaviours; however, evidence for associations with weight is limited, particularly in early childhood. Few studies have used comprehensive, psychometrically-tested measures of the home environment, and no studies have tested for gene-environment interaction in the home context. This thesis uses data from the Gemini twin cohort to further examine the role of the home environment. Study one describes the development of a comprehensive measure of the home environment in early childhood, including the quantification of the extent that the home is likely to be obesogenic. Study two explores the utility of a novel tool called SenseCam to examine and validate aspects of the home environment measure. Study three identifies a number of maternal characteristics associated with the obesogenic quality of the home environment. Study four shows associations between the obesogenic quality of the home environment and energy-balance behaviours; while study five finds no association with weight. Findings from study six highlight the role of gene-environment interaction, showing that the heritability of weight is higher among children living in home environments with greater obesogenic potential. Overall, the findings of this thesis further understanding on how the home environment contributes to the development of overweight and obesity. Implications, limitations, and avenues for future research are discussed