Visualizing information spaces to enhance social interaction

Abstract

Human beings are social animals. In real life, we are constantly in contact with others, whose activities help us decide where to go, what to see, and who to talk to. In information spaces like the World Wide Web (WWW), however, people cannot easily gain a sense of being with others, determine patterns of activities, nor find appropriate others to interact with. Our solution, LiveWeb, visualizes the underlying information structure and overlays the dynamic real-time presence of people. This live visualization serves as a basis for more effective interaction. LiveWeb has been deployed on a public Web site with over ten thousand hits a day. Experiments with real users of the system over several months have shown a strong preference for the presence display.