Information Technology Reference
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users?” show that not every user benefited from the current user node system. As rea-
sons, 2 subjects commented that they ”could not find anyone with common interests,”
and 1 commented that they ”used user nodes as a means to distinguish between one-
self and others, not as a method to find common interests.” However, some users were
able to actively utilize user nodes for information acquisition, such as looking back on
the music they listened to by viewing the length of colored beam for each genre, or by
chatting up users with similar nodes.
The high average score of 4.11 for question 6 ”did query nodes help you under-
stand the relation between objects?” suggests the usefulness of nodes when gathering
information within niche fields.
In the free comment section, subjects gave feedback such as ”Users on the system
were all interested in the same topic and thus reacted much more during conversation
on the topic, whereas the majority of Twitter users will not,” ”while existing SNS con-
nect individual users, I felt that the focus on having a common interest facilitated frank
communication,” ”being able to know the interests of other users through user nodes,
and learning more about the topic in question was very nice,” ”being recommended
something in a conversation seemed to prompt me to investigate things I previously
wouldn't have,” and ”the strategical connections between objects helped me gain in-
formation on cross-boundary connections.” These comments are proof that the system
achieves its goals of supporting cross-boundary information on interests and facilitation
of information exchange between users. The e
cacy of the node system, allowing users
to discover new queries from a sea of information, is also apparent.
5Con lu ion
We have proposed to you a new communication system that helps users gain cross-
boundary information as well as information between the users themselves. This system
allows users to follow nodes to discover potential friends that have similar character-
istics of interests, gain information across boundaries, and exchange information with
other users. Furthermore, communication with others with similar interests will facili-
tate social interaction.
we conducted a system evaluation experiment, and the results suggested that our
interest-based cross-boundary search and presentation of information is e
ective for
niche fields. Observation of interaction revealed that users were utilizing the icon nodes
placed around query nodes to reference YouTube, Wikipedia, Amazon, and other web-
sites in the course of their conversation. Therefore, it can be inferred that our system is
e
ff
ective to a degree when it comes to interest visualization and supporting the acquisi-
tion of information based on user interest.
The evaluation experiment revealed that sometimes a user will not be able to find
another user with similar interests, especially in cases when the user specifically listened
to artists relatively unknown to the extent that nobody else within the subject group
knew of them. However, this can be expected from the small size of the subject group,
and the likeliness of similar cases will decrease when the system is launched to the
public and sees users with a wide range of interests joining, increasing the range of
cross-boundary information shared even further.
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