combinFormation

Abstract

combinFormation is a mixed-initiative creativity support tool for searching, browsing, organizing, and integrating information. Images and text are connected to represent surrogates (enhanced bookmarks), optimizing the use of human cognitive facilities. Composition, an alternative to lists and spatial hypertext, is used to represent a collection of surrogates as a connected whole, using principles from art and design. This facilitates the creative process of information discovery, in which humans develop new ideas while finding and collecting information. To provoke the user to think about the large space of potentially relevant information resources, a generative agent proactively engages in collecting information resources, forming image and text surrogates, and composing them visually. The agent develops the collection and its visual representation over time, enabling the user to see ideas and relationships. To keep the human in control, we develop interactive mechanisms for authoring the composition and directing the agent. In a field study in an interdisciplinary course on The Design Process, over a hundred students alternated using combinFormation and Google+Word to collect prior work on information discovery invention assignments. The students that used combinFormation's mixed-initiative composition of image and text surrogates performed better.

Evaluating the Use of Digital Creativity Support by Journalists in Newsrooms

“…INJECT is a digital tool that was designed to support journalists to discover creative angles on new news articles, and to discover these angles more productively than with existing digital tools. It was built to support human-centred creative cognition [23], a process in which idea generation about new angles took place concurrently with information search. To support a journalist to discover new angles more productively, INJECT automatically retrieved news information with creative strategies that codified the expertise of experienced journalists [29].…”

Making the News

“…The digital support integrated natural language processing, creative search and interactive recommendation technologies. It codified the expertise of experienced journalists to retrieve news information and direct idea generation, consistent with human-centred creative cognition [15]. The support was delivered to journalists as a visible sidebar of a text editor.…”

“…INJECT is a new digital support tool for individual journalists to discover and examine creative angles on news stories under development. It was built to support human-centred creative cognition [15], in which idea generation about new angles took place concurrently with information search. INJECT searched news information with creative strategies that codified the expertise of experienced journalists.…”

Mapping the Landscape of Creativity Support Tools in HCI

“…A small percentage of our sample is currently available to the public (13%, 19 publications). Fewer of the sampled CSTs (4%, 6 publications) are available, but require setting up special hardware, and 3% (4 publications) can be accessed with some overhead, for example, by forking on GitHub, e.g., Bridge, combInformation, and Pipeline [47,96,110].…”