‘Information Encountering and Serendipity’ in ‘Designing the Search Experience’

Ann Blandford was invited to contribute an article on Information Encountering and Serendipity” to “Designing the Search Experience: The Information Architecture of Discovery” by Tony Russell-Rose and Tyler Tate.

This text has now been published by Morgan Kaufmann, to widespread acclaim and is now available here

The article focuses on the kinds of “happy accidents” that are at the heart of SerenA: the ways that people encounter information in their everyday lives, how they construct meaning out of information-rich experiences, and how they experience serendipity.

The challenge remains how to design resources that allow people to encounter information without actively seeking it, such as designing for meaning making, serendipity, and awareness. And how to maximise the value of information encountering while minimising the costs.

About the Book

Search is not just a box and ten blue links. Search is a journey: an exploration where what we encounter along the way changes what we seek. But in order to guide people along this journey, we must understand both the art and science of search.

Designing the Search Experience weaves together the theories of information seeking with the practice of user interface design. This definitive guide will enable you to:

  1. Understand how people search and how the concepts of information seeking, information foraging, and sensemaking underpin the search process.
  2. Apply the principles of user-centered design to the search box, search results, faceted navigation, mobile interfaces, social search, and much more.
  3. Design the cross-channel search experiences of tomorrow that span desktop, tablet, mobile, and other devices.

 

 

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