Desktop Information Foraging

Information foraging processes, like searching and organizing information on a particular topic, are an integral part of everyday tasks by knowledge workers. Most of these tasks are performed on the computer desktop with the support of various applications. However, that there is insufficient software support for collecting and organizing snippets of incomplete, uncertain, and inconsistent data during information foraging on the desktop across multiple desktop applications.

The goal of this ongoing research project is to design and validate a novel technology for software-based information foraging to increase the knowledge workers' insight into their gathered information. The project will deal with spatial information management techniques embedded into existing desktop interfaces, casual information visualization techniques to reveal hidden connections between collected information snippets and open application windows, as well as graphical desktop histories of information foraging activities. In the end, knowledge workers should be able to manage their actual information on the desktop, rather than invest a lot of effort on manual window management.

Insititution: Vienna University of Technology
Year: 2013 - 2018

Publications

Manuela Waldner, Stefan Bruckner, Ivan Viola
Graphical Histories of Information Foraging
In NordiCHI'14 - Nordic Conference on Human-Computer Interaction
pages 295-304
October 2014
paper [PDF - 3 MB]

Manuela Waldner, Dieter Schmalstieg
Towards Ubiquitous Information Space Management
In CHI 2013 Extended Abstracts (POWERWALL: International Workshop on Interactive, Ultra-High-Resolution Displays)
pages 1-6
April 2013
paper [PDF - 0.8 MB]

Award

Hertha-Firnberg-Project: Visual Information Foraging on the Desktop 2014
3-year project (2015-2018) funded by the Austrian Science Fund (FWF)

Project List