Generating Narratives from Personal Digital Data

Abstract

The need for users to make sense of their growing mass of personal digital data presents a challenge to Design and HCI researchers. There is a growing interest in using narrative techniques to support the interpretation and understanding of such data. In this early study we explore methods of selecting images from personal Instagram accounts in the form of a triptych (a sequence of three images) in order to create a sense of narrative. We present a brief description of the algorithms behind image selection, evaluate how effective they are in creating a sense of narrative, and discuss the wider implications of our work. Results show that semantic tagging, a dynamic programming algorithm, and a simple narrative structure produced triptychs which were significantly more story-like, with a significantly more coherent order, than a random selection, or a neutral sequence of images.

Generating Narratives from Personal Digital Data: Using Sentiment, Themes, and Named Entities to Construct Stories

“…We have run an initial evaluation of the story-generation algorithm by asking participants to look at picture sequences generated from public data (not their own), some generated by our system and others chosen at random [1]. We found that our system produced output which users rated significantly higher than random when asked "How much does this sequence of pictures tell a story?"…”

A life story in three parts: the use of triptychs to make sense of personal digital data

“…Posts and photos were imported into the application and three triptychs were generated automatically: one was composed of randomly selected pictures (our baseline), one had a narrative target specifying a neutral sentiment throughout and the third specified an emotional arc from negative to positive sentiment. Participants were asked to rate the three automatically generated triptychs using the rating scheme from Aylett et al [22]. They were not told how the triptychs were created, and the order of presentation was varied between participants.…”

“…We also wanted to see how we might support this process by developing a novel computer interface that would allow participants to generate triptychs from their social media content automatically. Earlier work has shown that it is possible to select sequences of three pictures on the basis of a simple narrative or emotional search and that these pictures are then perceived as more story-like by human evaluators than similar pictures selected at random [22]. Previous work has also demonstrated the value of physical over digital content and the value of physical photographs to invoke memories [12].…”