Projects -> Document provenance (longitudinal)
Document provenance (longitudinal)
Tags: field study, longitudinal study, enthnography, interviews
Time frame: 2008 - 2009
Description: Document provenance refers to the history and genealogy of a document or a file. Provenance helps people understand the evolution and relationships of files: how and when different versions of a document were created, or how different documents in a collection build on each other through copy-paste events. Though methods for tracking provenance and the subsequent use of this meta-data have been proposed and developed into tools, there have been no studies documenting the types and frequency of provenance events in typical computer use. This is knowledge essential for the design of efficient query methods and information displays.
I participated in a longitudinal study of knowledge workers at Intel Corporation tracking provenance events in their computer use. I observed and interviewed a dozen knowledge workers to determine the effectiveness of provenance cues for document recall. Our data shows that provenance relationships are common, and provenance cues aid recall.
Summary of UX methods and their goals
| UX method | Goal |
|---|---|
| Ethnography | To udnerstand the context of users' work and to supplement additional provenance events not captured by tooling. |
| Structured interviews with free recall and cued recall | To understand the effects of provenance events on users' memories of documents. |
Publication:The Life and Times of Files and Information: A Study of Desktop Provenance, ACM CHI 2010