Abstract

In recent years the Web has evolved substantially, transforming from a place where we primarily find information to a place where we also leave, share and keep it. This presents a fresh set of challenges for the management of personal information, which include how to underpin greater awareness and more control over digital belongings and other personally meaningful content that is hosted online. In this talk, I will report findings from a study that explores the notion, argued for in prior research, that a sense of ownership and control over online content can be reinforced by federating it as a virtual, single store. Participants were asked to give the researchers a tour of online content that is personally meaningful to them; to perform a search for themselves in order to uncover additional content; and to respond to a series of design envisionments. Analysis leads us to reject the concept of a single archive and instead present a framework of five different types of online content, each of which has separate implications for personal information management.

Siân Lindley is a Researcher with the Socio-Digital Systems (SDS) group at Microsoft Research Cambridge, where she has worked since 2007. She has a PhD in Psychology from the University of York and an MSc in Human-Centred Computing Systems from the University of Sussex.