Introduction

Welcome to the TW3 web page!

TW3 is a multidisciplinary collaboration involving experimental psychologists, sociologists, and computer scientists, funded under the ESRC/EPSRC PACCIT (People at the Centre of Communications and Information Technology) initiative (Grant No. L328253020)

Information overload is a growing problem in people's ability to use systems such as email, databases, and online catalogues. This problem is exacerbated when information is shared between people with different viewpoints.

We set out to investigate principles for devising schemes that would help people organise and retrieve information for shared use.

The project achieved the following outcomes:

1. Software

   We developed a novel browser (‘The Way We Were’ - or TW3). The browser aids collaborative photograph handling and optimises recovery of images ‘lost’ through errors of categorisation or recall
   
   

2. Ethnography

   We found a) evidence that people ‘manage-out’ remembering tasks in organisational contexts, b) categorisation strategies and roles adopted by collaborating couples that influenced these strategies, and c) couples studied at home managing their photograph collections and discovering new uses for the TW3 browser
   
   

3. Experiments

   We demonstrated a) reductions in inhibitory effects of collaborating during information retrieval by common information-encoding categories, and b) collaborative inhibition in the real-world context of photograph handling
   
   

4. HCI

   We found a) advantages for TW3 in multi-user retrieval compared with the Adobe Photofinder browser, and b) the TW3 browser can successfully handle large-scale (1000+) photosets in commercial contexts
   
   

5. Methodology

   We have shown how ethnography and experimentation can be complementary. We also explored an ethnographic stance as a meta-analysis technique
   
   

For further details, see the project final report, 1000-word non-specialist summary, and pdfs of papers in the "Documents" section.

Two versions of the software are also available for download in the "Downloads" section; one used in the experiments, the other a freestanding browser for home use.