Kristen Beveridge

Response to Collaborative Web Browsing

2/23/97

Providing assistance was more difficult than I thought it would be at the beginning due to the fact that I was in the spotlight. There was a "user" that I was to assist, and an "observer" scribbling down comments about my ability to guide and assist. However, at first, I was able to guide the user to an answer in a matter of three clicks, but once the questions became more difficult, I found myself initially frustrated when I was unable to provide the route to the answer (and quickly). Although, one thing I did notice was that as the search items became more difficult, the user and I started to work together more collaboratively. It certainly felt more like a team quest than an individual quest or task (me being the omnipotent assistant, guide to the blind user.) So, as the difficulty level of the search items rose, the working relationship improved. We began to information-share and collaborate. I no longer had the pressure of being the all-knowing, perfect assitant.

The most helpful thing that the searcher did was to remember things I had told him in the past. He was able to say, "Oh, we should go to Alta Vista for this search because it will give me the broadest number of search results", or "Maybe we should go to a 'news' site to find the answer to this question." This act of "remembering" and building upon what has already been learned is key to a collaborative working relationship.

I couldn't have done a better job (and faster) searching by myself. I believe that two heads are always better than one, when working well together.

Because the user and I already have an established working relationship (last week's session) I believe we would do well together if we worked together again, due to the fact that we have already begun to learn how the other person thinks and funcitons.

I learned from assisting this user that it is always important to explain why you are having them take a specific action. Explaining something helps them to remember much better - it provides a teaching environment rather than a "do this, do that" environment where no explanation or learning takes place.

I do not believe much of the same type of assisting could be achieved by a computer right now. I believe that the search engines, as they are, are very much complex agents in and of themselves. In order for a personal computer agent to work in this situation, I think that the wild west of the web needs better organization, more systematic organization of content and searches. It would seem difficult to program an agent that could manage such an untamed world.

If the searcher and I were in different rooms, we could have communicated via appletalk, or another chat program, as well as conducting simultaneous searches. I don't feel that I had to be physically present with the user in order to effectively conduct the web searches. We could have just as easly been typing back and forth. The only thing I would desire is that if we were doing a joint search (assitant/user) if we could both see /share the same content on the screen.