Google Knows What You Hate About Your Kindle: Using Search Queries to Infer User Needs and Desires in Consumer Products
Speaker: Michael Terry , University of Waterloo
Date: October 28 2011
Time: 1:00PM to 2:00PM
Location: Patil/Kiva Seminar Room (G449)
Host: Rob Miller, MIT CSAIL
Contact: Katrina Panovich, kp@mit.edu
Relevant URL: http://groups.csail.mit.edu/uid/seminar.shtmlAbstract:
It has become second nature to "Google" any problem we have with the technology we own. As designers of technology, we can exploit this behavior to learn what people want and need from their products, by virtue of what they search for. In this talk, I will present a technique that transforms web search query logs into forms that enable one to identify usability issues in publicly available products, such as the iPhone, Kindle, and Firefox. Since raw query logs are not made available to the public, I will also show how search query corpora can be approximated using publicly available resources. Finally, I will demonstrate how we can automatically map a search query to the specific widgets in the interface most related to that query, even when there is no overlap in terms. This capability enables new interaction techniques, such as tooltips that describe how a command is typically used in practice.
Bio:
Michael Terry is an associate professor in the Cheriton School of Computer Science at the University of Waterloo, where he co-directs the HCI Lab. His research examines how web-centric data sets (search query logs, actual web pages) can be used to model how people think about and use arbitrary interactive systems. His work also explores the notion of socially adaptable user interfaces, or user interfaces that allow a user community to easily create and share interface customizations.
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