TY - GEN
T1 - Exploring new metaphors for a networked world through the file biography
AU - Lindley, Siân E.
AU - Smyth, Gavin
AU - Corish, Robert
AU - Loukianov, Anastasia
AU - Golembewski, Michael
AU - Luger, Ewa A.
AU - Sellen, Abigail
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2018 Copyright is held by the owner/author(s).
PY - 2018/4/19
Y1 - 2018/4/19
N2 - We present a body of work undertaken in response to the challenge outlined by Harper et al. in their paper, 'What is a File?' [9]. Through a conceptual and design-led exploration of new file metaphors, we developed the 'file biography', a digital entity that encompasses the provenance of a file and allows the user to keep track of how it propagates. We explored this through prototyping and utilised it in two user studies. In the studies, we (i) asked people to sketch out file biographies for their own content, and (ii) deployed a tool enabling users to build their own simple file biographies across multiple versions of Word documents. We conclude that new file metaphors may need to play different roles for different types of digital content, with a distinction being drawn between content that is 'in production' and virtual possessions that are, in a sense, a 'finished' artefact.
AB - We present a body of work undertaken in response to the challenge outlined by Harper et al. in their paper, 'What is a File?' [9]. Through a conceptual and design-led exploration of new file metaphors, we developed the 'file biography', a digital entity that encompasses the provenance of a file and allows the user to keep track of how it propagates. We explored this through prototyping and utilised it in two user studies. In the studies, we (i) asked people to sketch out file biographies for their own content, and (ii) deployed a tool enabling users to build their own simple file biographies across multiple versions of Word documents. We conclude that new file metaphors may need to play different roles for different types of digital content, with a distinction being drawn between content that is 'in production' and virtual possessions that are, in a sense, a 'finished' artefact.
KW - Control
KW - Fork
KW - Grammar of action
KW - Ownership
KW - Patina
KW - Propagation
KW - Provenance
KW - Version control
KW - Virtual possession
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85046974232&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1145/3173574.3173692
DO - 10.1145/3173574.3173692
M3 - Conference contribution
AN - SCOPUS:85046974232
T3 - Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems - Proceedings
SP - 1
EP - 12
BT - CHI 2018 - Extended Abstracts of the 2018 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems
PB - Association for Computing Machinery
T2 - 2018 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, CHI 2018
Y2 - 21 April 2018 through 26 April 2018
ER -