Discovering activities in your city using transitory search

Abstract

Discovering activities in the city around you can be difficult with traditional search engines unless you know what you are looking for. Searching for inspiration on things to do requires a more open-ended and explorative approach. We introduce transitory search as a dynamic way of uncovering information about activities in the city around you that allows the user to start from a vague idea of what they are interested in, and iteratively modify their search using slider continuums to discover best-fit results. We present the design of a smartphone app exemplifying the idea of transitory search and give results from a lab evaluation and a 4-week field deployment involving 15 people in two different cities. Our findings indicate that transitory search on a mobile device both supports discovering activities in the city and more interestingly helps users reflect on and shape their preferences in situ. We also found that ambiguous slider continuums work well as people happily form and refine individual interpretations of them.