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“Discovery is never by chance”: Designing for (un)serendipity

André, P., schraefel, m. c., Teevan, J. and Dumais, S. T. (2009) “Discovery is never by chance”: Designing for (un)serendipity. In: ACM Creativity & Cognition 2009.

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Abstract

Serendipity has a long tradition in the history of science as having played a key role in many significant discoveries. Computer science, valuing the role of serendipity in discovery, has attempted to design systems that encourage serendipity. However, this research has focused primarily on only one aspect of serendipity: that of chance encounters. In reality, for serendipity to be valuable, those chance encounters must be synthesized into insight. In this paper we show through a formal consideration of serendipity, and an analysis of how various systems have seized on attributes of interpreting serendipity, that there is a richer space for design to support serendipitous creativity, innovation and discovery than has been currently tapped to date. We discuss how ideas might be encoded to be shared or discovered by ‘association-hunting’ agents. We propose considering not only the inventor role in perceiving serendipity, but how that inventor’s perception may be enhanced to increase the opportunity for serendipity. We also explore the role of environment and how we can better enable serendipitous discoveries to find a home more readily and immediately.

Creators:Paul André, m.c. schraefel, Jaime Teevan, Susan T. Dumais
Item Type:Conference or Workshop Item
Keywords:Serendipity, survey, creativity, insight, design suggestions
Research Group:Intelligence, Agents, Multimedia
Deposited On:28 Jul 2009 14:07 by Andre, Paul
ID Code:17710
Last Modified:28 Jul 2009 14:07
Performance Indicator:EZ~04~02~04

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