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Overview
Each of us has an ever-growing collection of personal digital data: documents, photographs, PowerPoint presentations, videos, music, emails and texts sent and received. To access any of this, we have to find it. The ease (or difficulty) of finding something depends on how we organize our digital stuff. In this book, personal information management (PIM) experts Ofer Bergman and Steve Whittaker explain why we organize our personal digital data the way we do and how the design of new PIM systems can help us manage our collections more efficiently.
Bergman and Whittaker report that many of us use hierarchical folders for our personal digital organizing. Critics of this method point out that information is hidden from sight in folders that are often within other folders so that we have to remember the exact location of information to access it. Because of this, information scientists suggest other methods: search, more flexible than navigating folders; tags, which allow multiple categorizations; and group information management. Yet Bergman and Whittaker have found in their pioneering PIM research that these other methods that work best for public information management don't work as well for personal information management.
Bergman and Whittaker describe personal information collection as curation: we preserve and organize this data to ensure our future access to it. Unlike other information management fields, in PIM the same user organizes and retrieves the information. After explaining the cognitive and psychological reasons that so many prefer folders, Bergman and Whittaker propose the user-subjective approach to PIM, which does not replace folder hierarchies but exploits these unique characteristics of PIM.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9780262035170 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | MIT Press |
| Publication date: | 11/11/2016 |
| Series: | The MIT Press |
| Pages: | 296 |
| Product dimensions: | 5.50(w) x 8.10(h) x 1.20(d) |
| Age Range: | 18 Years |
About the Author
Steve Whittaker is Professor of Human-Computer Interaction at the University of California, Santa Cruz.
Table of Contents
Acknowledgments ix
Introduction xi
I Personal Information Management: The Curation Perspective 1
1 Personal Archives and Curation Processes 5
2 Keeping 33
3 Management 51
4 Exploitation 79
Part I Summary 101
II Hierarchical Folders and Their Alternatives 103
5 The Search Alternative 107
6 The Tagging Alternative 121
7 The Group Management Alternative 141
8 Why Is Navigation the Preferred PIM Retrieval Method? 161
Part II Summary 175
9 The User-Subjective Approach 181
10 The Subjective Importance Principle 185
11 The Subjective Project Classification Principle 203
12 The Subjective Context Principle 211
Part III Summary 223
Conclusions and Future Directions 225
Notes 241
References 243
Index 271
What People are Saying About This
Why aren't the information retrieval tools that have partly tamed content on the web equally effective in helping us manage the massive amounts of digital stuff we all have accumulated? Drawing from their own empirical research and fundamental principles of cognitive psychology, Bergman and Whittaker identify the way that our prior knowledge of the content and predictions about context of future use cause hierarchical folders to be both the preferred and most effective methods for managing our digital content.The deep, scientific base for their explanation and applications to new designs for personal information management makes this book stand out.
Our digital stuff is increasing by the bucket load each day. How do we manage it? Bergman and Whittaker's important and scientifically grounded book provides a fascinating account of why we persist with seemingly old-fashioned methods when there are alternative seemingly better approaches that have been designed by software companies. Much food for thought.
In 1980, personal digital information meant a few dozen files. Today, it is many thousands of files per person. We each curate our own British Museum of digital stuff. Bergman and Whittaker explain how and why we do this, accessibly and authoritatively integrating the psychology and technology of personal information management, and directing that understanding toward future designs.
As two of the most experienced researchers in the world on personal information management, Bergman and Whittaker have written the go-to book. Drawing on insights from years of research, they point the way to developing much better technologies for dealing with the thorny challenges of keeping, organizing, and using our own digital stuff.
Why aren't the information retrieval tools that have partly tamed content on the web equally effective in helping us manage the massive amounts of digital stuff we all have accumulated? Drawing from their own empirical research and fundamental principles of cognitive psychology, Bergman and Whittaker identify the way that our prior knowledge of the content and predictions about context of future use cause hierarchical folders to be both the preferred and most effective methods for managing our digital content.The deep, scientific base for their explanation and applications to new designs for personal information management makes this book stand out.
—Robert Kraut, Herbert A. Simon Professor of Human-Computer Interaction, Carnegie Mellon University
Our digital stuff is increasing by the bucket load each day. How do we manage it? Bergman and Whittaker's important and scientifically grounded book provides a fascinating account of why we persist with seemingly old-fashioned methods when there are alternative seemingly better approaches that have been designed by software companies. Much food for thought.
—Yvonne Rogers, Professor of Interaction Design, University College LondonIn 1980, personal digital information meant a few dozen files. Today, it is many thousands of files per person. We each curate our own British Museum of digital stuff. Bergman and Whittaker explain how and why we do this, accessibly and authoritatively integrating the psychology and technology of personal information management, and directing that understanding toward future designs.
—John M. Carroll, Distinguished Professor of Information Sciences and Technology, Pennsylvania State University; author of Making UseAs two of the most experienced researchers in the world on personal information management, Bergman and Whittaker have written the go-to book. Drawing on insights from years of research, they point the way to developing much better technologies for dealing with the thorny challenges of keeping, organizing, and using our own digital stuff.
—Abigail Sellen, Principal Researcher, Microsoft Research; coauthor of The Myth of the Paperless OfficeWhy aren't the information retrieval tools that have partly tamed content on the web equally effective in helping us manage the massive amounts of digital stuff we all have accumulated? Drawing from their own empirical research and fundamental principles of cognitive psychology, Bergman and Whittaker identify the way that our prior knowledge of the content and predictions about context of future use cause hierarchical folders to be both the preferred and most effective methods for managing our digital content. The deep, scientific base for their explanation and applications to new designs for personal information management makes this book stand out.
—Robert Kraut, Herbert A. Simon Professor of Human-Computer Interaction, Carnegie Mellon University