Context-based page unit recommendation for web-based sensemaking tasks

Abstract

Sensemaking tasks require users to perform complex research behaviors to gather and comprehend information from many sources. Such tasks are common and include, for example, researching vacation destinations or deciding how to invest. In this paper, we present an algorithm and interface that provides context-based page unit recommendation to assist in connection discovery during sensemaking tasks. We exploit the natural note-taking activity common to sensemaking behavior as the basis for a task-specific context model. Each web page visited by a user is dynamically analyzed to determine the most relevant content fragments which are then recommended to the user. Our initial evaluations indicate that our approach improves user performance.