Designing a Semantic Sketchbook to Create Opportunities for Serendipity

186

Serendipity is not an easy word to define. Its meaning has been stretched to apply to experiences ranging from the mundane to the exceptional. Serendipity, however, is consistently associated with unexpected and positive personal, scholarly, scientific, organizational, and societal events and discoveries. Diverse serendipitous experiences share a conceptual space; therefore, what lessons can we draw from an exploration of how serendipity unfolds and what may influence it? This article describes an investigation of work-related serendipity. Twelve professionals and academics from a variety of fields were interviewed. The core of the semi-structured interviews focused on participants' own work-related experiences that could be recalled and discussed in depth. This research validated and augmented prior research while consolidating previous models of serendipity into a single model of the process of serendipity, consisting of: Trigger, Connection, Follow-up, and Valuable Outcome, and an Unexpected Thread that runs through 1 or more of the first 4 elements. Together, the elements influence the Perception of Serendipity. Furthermore, this research identified what factors relating to the individual and their environment may facilitate the main elements of serendipity and further influence its perception.

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Investigating serendipity: How it unfolds and what may influence it

McCay‐Peet

Toms

2015

186

“…Although we have focused on providing design suggestions for supporting serendipity strategies, there are also several other possible “lenses” that may be useful for supporting serendipity; for example, it is possible to design to support aspects of the process or essence of serendipity (see Maxwell et al., ), such as making or exploiting the value of connections made. It is also possible to design to support aspects of digital environments that have been empirically identified to facilitate serendipity—such as “presenting variety” and “inducing curiosity” (see McCay‐Peet & Toms, ).…”

Section: Findings and Design Implicationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“Making my own luck”: Serendipity strategies and how to support them in digital information environments

Makri

Blandford

Woods

et al. 2014

Self Cite

110

130

my own luck": Serendipity strategies and how to support them in digital information environments. Journal of the Association for Information Science and Technology, 65(11), pp. 2179-2194. doi: 10.1002 This is the accepted version of the paper.This version of the publication may differ from the final published version. Permanent ABSTRACTSerendipity occurs when unexpected circumstances and an 'aha' moment of insight result in a valuable, unanticipated outcome. Designing digital information environments to support serendipity can not only provide users with new knowledge, but also propel them in exciting directions they might not otherwise have travelled insurprising and delighting them along the way. As serendipity involves unexpected circumstances it cannot be directly controlled, but it can potentially be influenced. However, to the best of our knowledge, no previous work has focused on providing a rich empirical understanding of how it might be influenced. We interviewed 14 creative professionals to identify their self-reported strategies aimed at increasing the likelihood of serendipity. These strategies form a framework for examining ways existing digital environments support serendipity and for considering how future environments can create opportunities for it. This is a new way of thinking about how to design for serendipity; by supporting the strategies found to increase its likelihood rather than attempting to support serendipity as a discrete phenomenon, digital environments not only have the potential to help users experience serendipity but also encourage them to adopt the strategies necessary to experience it more often.

“…The SerenA Notebook is an Android‐based mobile app building on the functionality of physical notebooks and the action of note‐taking to support serendipity (Maxwell et al., ). The app aims to interactively replicate these roles by allowing users to make notes while on the move and tag them with various hashtag keywords to enable later searching or browsing (Figure ).…”

Section: The Serena Notebookmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Our study aimed to investigate how academics interacted with and made use of messages received on their mobile phones generated by a reflective app, the SerenA Notebook app (Maxwell et al., ), and whether messages were perceived as opportunities for serendipity. The SerenA app was developed to try to integrate serendipity with people's activities, particularly focusing on the notion of notebooks and capturing the action of note‐taking.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Academics' responses to encountered information: Context matters

Pontis

Kefalidou

Blandford

et al. 2015

Self Cite

This is the accepted version of the paper.This version of the publication may differ from the final published version. Permanent repository link AbstractAn increasing number of tools are being developed to help academics interact with information, but little is known about the benefits of those tools for their users. This study evaluated academics' receptiveness to information proposed by a mobile app, the SerenA Notebook: information that is based in their inferred interests but does not relate directly to a prior recognized need. The evaluated app aimed at creating the experience of serendipitous encounters: generating ideas and inspiring thoughts, and potentially triggering follow--up actions, by providing users with information related to their work and leisure interests in the form of suggestions. We studied how 20 academics interacted with messages sent by the mobile app at a rate of 3 per day over ten consecutive days.Collected data sets were analyzed using thematic analysis. We found that contextual factors (location, activity and focus) strongly influenced academics' responses to messages. Academics described some unsolicited information as interesting but irrelevant when they could not make immediate use of it. They highlighted filtering information as their major struggle rather than finding information. Some messages that were positively received acted as reminders of activities participants were meant to be doing but were postponing, or were relevant to ongoing activities at the time the information was received.