Principles for applying social navigation to collaborative systems

Abstract

This paper proposes that social navigation can solve many of the challenges facing user experience in collaborative systems. Three key values and three phases of design for social navigation support are identified. The values of social navigation support in collaboration are: discovery of new features; predicting the consequence of certain actions and decisions based on what other people have done previously; and conveying cultural context to meet the expectations of other members of the collaborative space. The phases are: collection of what other people have done; evaluation of consequences about the actions and decisions users can make; and presentation of the appropriate information to help the user with the best decision. The paper outlines how each value can be maximized through design at each phase. Examples are provided to illustrate that social navigation is ready to be integrated into collaboration tools to improve overall usability.