What am I not seeing? An Interactive Approach to Social Content Discovery in Microblogs

In this paper, we focus on the informational and user experience benefits of user-driven topic exploration in microblog communities, such as Twitter, in an inspectable, controllable and personalized manner. To this end, we introduce ``HopTopics'' -- a novel interactive tool for exploring content that is popular just beyond a user's typical information horizon in a microblog, as defined by the network of individuals that they are connected to. We present results of a user study (N=122) to evaluate HopTopics with varying complexity against a typical microblog feed in both personalized and non-personalized conditions. Results show that the HopTopics system, leveraging content from both the direct and extended network of a user, succeeds in giving users a better sense of control and transparency. Moreover, participants had a poor mental model for the degree of novel content discovered when presented with non-personalized data in the Inspectable interface

Understanding the Effects of Personalization Behavior on Content Aggregator Use and User Satisfaction

Content aggregators have become pillars of the digital media space and provide new avenues through which entertainment content can be distributed. This research examines the role aggregation plays in directing Millennial and Gen-Z audiences to entertainment content through the lens of Media System Dependency Theory (MSDT): which content aggregators are most common within this demographic, how important the ability to personalize a content aggregator is to the user, how common personalization is within each group, and whether users feel satisfied by the content aggregators they use. This study finds that student users are widely satisfied with content aggregators, and that dependence on aggregators and personalization of content are related as anticipated by MSDT, despite only moderate aggregator use among students. Using two combined indices, positive relationships are found between user satisfaction and session frequency, dependence, and personalization. Additionally, some students are identified as power users, or individuals who spend more time personalizing and using the services than others who prefer only limited personalization

Information Reliability on the Social Web - Models and Applications in Intelligent User Interfaces

The Social Web is undergoing continued evolution, changing the paradigm of information production, processing and sharing. Information sources have shifted from institutions to individual users, vastly increasing the amount of information available online. To overcome the information overload problem, modern filtering algorithms have enabled people to find relevant information in efficient ways. However, noisy, false and otherwise useless information remains a problem. We believe that the concept of information reliability needs to be considered along with information relevance to adapt filtering algorithms to today's Social Web. This approach helps to improve information search and discovery and can also improve user experience by communicating aspects of information reliability.This thesis first shows the results of a cross-disciplinary study into perceived reliability by reporting on a novel user experiment. This is followed by a discussion of modeling, validating, and communicating information reliability, including its various definitions across disciplines. A selection of important reliability attributes such as source credibility, competence, influence and timeliness are examined through different case studies. Results show that perceived reliability of information can vary greatly across contexts. Finally, recent studies on visual analytics, including algorithm explanations and interactive interfaces are discussed with respect to their impact on the perception of information reliability in a range of application domains