Issues of Search Design

This thesis started with exploring the possible future of knowledge management.

Through desktop research and interviews, I learned that advances in information management are far from a human-centred approach. In the work process, I had the opportunity to talk with 18 people of different ages and specialities. I also had the chance to speak with the information management industry workers.

I learned that existing advances in this field, such as Advanced search and AI, primarily perform technological simplification tasks rather than solving user problems.

After processing all findings were formulated in the following three problems:

Workshops & Ideations

I developed the initial concepts based on user feedback and collaboration with designers focusing on a couple of crucial moments in getting information to make it human-centred.
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In the work process, I conducted three workshops and three experiments to understand the readiness of people to interact with various sources of information in multiple forms.

Design principles

As a result of the work, interviews, and workshops, I formulated three design principles that guided the formation of the final concept.
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Make it personalized
Personalized experience has the highest value for people. When creating new opportunities and new solutions, it is crucial to consider and understand how a person perceives this information. How to make it most comfortable for an individual level. Personalized - made for or directed or adjusted to a particular individual

Let the user choose
Ask your user. Communicate in the same way and let them define the results of the interaction.

Helping humans instead of being human
Technology should not try to be human, but it can help strengthen a human. Technology supports humans.

Concept

Different narrations and visualizations of the information for other individuals based on passionate people's experiences

One day Camila is at home trying to photoshop her wedding pictures because she is not satisfied with the freckle on her face. She is not so familiar with Photoshop but wants to learn. She asks the question, and her AI reaches out to people passionate about Graphic design.
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On a beach near Hawaii, a guy is chilling and reading. His name is Joan. He is a music producer based in the U.S. Joan finished one big project a few days ago and is on vacation, so he wants to relax and not think about anything. His AI (phone) next to him receive the search from Camila, but his AI doesn't want to bother him, so it rejects the request.
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Meanwhile, there's a girl in a marketing lecture in China; she is bored in class. Syin has been scrolling her Instagram for 30 minutes already. The AI knows she can respond to Camila's request, and he shows it to her. Syin knows very well how to photoshop the skin and how it is sometimes essential. So she quickly and without difficulty shared her experience. She writes a list of tools and how to use them. Camila's AI received an answer, and it evaluates the answers from Syin into images since Camila perceives it visually much easier and faster.

Passionate people

People have various desires: programmers passionate about music, economists who love 3d modelling, and designers who understand hundreds of wines. Passion allows a person to enjoy knowledge, be excited and not tire of what they are doing. A person can tirelessly spend countless hours studying their passion and become an expert in an area that no other person can achieve at such speed and with such pleasure.

People with passion have unique knowledge that they are willing to share. In the picture below, you can see the visualization of the concept:

What does mean personal AI in that concept?

AI - the ability of technological systems to perform self-learning, decision-making, and self-correction processes.

AI can learn your habits. It may decide what content to show you, when the best time to disturb you and can make an appointment, answer the call, etc. It can be understood that you always go to a cafe more often in the afternoon, you like to visit the sea once a month and how much time you spend on a photo or a post with text during scrolling. Self-correction can occur this way if you stop going to the sea once a month and start practising in the pool. To understand these features in more detail, I will give examples.

Personal AI is nothing more than the functionality of existing devices capable of collecting and processing data in our personal space to make decisions for improving our life.

For example, based on your search queries and frequent search for podcasts, the AI can decide to show you a search query in voice control format. For another person, the search result may be a story described in a fiction style that can influence the course of events.