Ambient Findability
By Peter Morville
First Edition September 2005
ISBN: 0-596-00765-5
204 pages, $29.95 US, $41.95 CA
Short Review
Smiley Rating: Excellent. :) :) :) :) :) of 5.
We are moving toward a world in which we can reasonably expect to find almost anything from anywhere anytime. The author explores this fascinating world of ambient findability.
The book is short, intriguing and easy to read. If you have an adventuresome mind and find the first sentence of this short review interesting, you'll likely love this book.
Want more detail? See my somewhat longer review.
George Woolley of Camelot.pm and Oakland.pm
Miscellaneous
Chapter Titles
- 1. Lost and Found
- 2. A Brief History of Wayfinding
- 3. Information Interaction
- 4. Intertwingled
- 5. Push and Pull
- 6. The Sociosemantic Web
- 7. Inspired Decisions
Note:
- To view the full table of contents, visit the O'Reilly catalog entry for the book.
Some Interesting Terms
- ambient findability (easily found objects everywhere)
- boundary objects (shared objects understood differently)
- contronym (a word with contradictory meanings in different contexts)
- hippocampus (part of brain critical to wayfinding)
- intertwingularity (interconnectedness)
- noosphere (conceptual space)
- spime (an object that is locatable, self-revealing)
- wayfinding (finding one's way from one place to another)
Notes:
- There are useful passages on all the above terms in the book.
- I was unaware of most of these terms before reading the book.
- The words in parentheses are just meant to give the general idea. They are not definitions.
Selected Quotes and Laws
"There is one timeless way of building.
It is thousands of years old, and the same today as it has always been.
...
It is not possible to make great buildings, or great towns, beautiful places,
places where you feel yourself, places where you feel alive,
except by following this way."
-- Christopher Alexander
"The future exists today. It's just not evenly distributed." -- William Gibson
"No man ever steps in the same river twice,
for it's not the same river, and he's not the same man."
-- Heraclitus
"the value of networked systems (e.g., telephone, fax, email, Web)
grows exponentially as the user population increases in a linear manner."
-- part of the author's statement of Metcalfe's Law
"An information retrieval system will tend not to be used
whenever it is more painful and troublesome for a customer
to have information than for him not to have it."
-- Calvin Mooer (Mooer's Law)
"Given enough eyeballs, all bugs are shallow"
-- Eric Raymond (sometimes called Linus' Law)
Note:
- The above quotes (sometimes shortened by me) are in the book.
Online Watch
Safari: The book is on Safari Tech Books Online. :) In fact, that's where I read it and reviewed it.
Even if you haven't subscribed to Safari, you can access the Safari search capability for this book from the the catalog entry. I've found this quite useful.
Sample Chapter: A pdf for Chapter 1 "Lost and Found" is accessible from the O'Reilly catalog entry.
Short Stuff (articles, blog, interviews):
- Authority article
- The Impact of "Ambient Findability" article
- UFOs (Ubiquitous Findable Objects) article
- findability.org blog
- An Interview with Louis Rosenfeld and Peter Morville
- The Tagsonomy Interview
Website:
Keywords
Authority Bananas Colour Costs Drops Everyware False GPS Gossip Ingestibles Labyrinths Laws Long Maps Mazes Memory Metaphor Myst Neocortex Personalization Popularity Power Privacy RFID Relevance Search Spam Tags Tail Treo Turtles
Notes:
- In the preface, the author assigns keywords to each chapter of the book.
- Above is all these keywords together in alphabetic order.
Somewhat Longer Review
Contents
Note:
- Published by O'Reilly.
The Title
Ambient: By "ambient", I understand
- encompassing
- pervasive
- part of the background
Findability: By "findability", I understand the quality of being findable. But in the context of "ambient findability", the ability of the seeker to find comes into play too.
The book focuses on findability in a physical sense, but it sometimes uses the term "findability" in a broader sense that includes the digital (e.g. finding a web page).
How Well Does the Book Fit the Title?: The author notes that we are moving in the direction of being able to find anything from anywhere. The book does, indeed, explore "ambient findability".
The book gives a picture of where we are and where we are going with respect to findability; where we are going is toward ambient findability. The book also sketches the history of findability.
About the Reviewer
A Fan of O'Reilly: I have a lot of O'Reilly books. I have a high regard for both O'Reilly technical and non-technical books.
Fascination with Losing/Finding: I have long been fascinated with the phenomena of losing and then finding things.
Fascination with the Future: I am fascinated by what the future may bring.
What Get
This book contains 7 chapters each on a different aspect of the book's subject.
Each chapter consists of an introduction followed by several sections. Each chapter introduction begins with a short quote which is relevant to the chapter. Typically the chapter introduction strikes a personal tone by
- bringing to life a relevant experience of the author's
- telling the story of someone else's experience or creation.
- asking a question which engages the reader
In the chapters, I noticed certain things repeating
- images (graphics or word pictures)
- invocations of specific times and places
- definitions of important terms and elucidations of relevant concepts
- descriptions of devices that support findability.
- personal language, e.g. "I", "you", "we".
What I Like
Style: I like the author's style in this book. It's
- relaxed
- conversational
- personal
- exploratory
Imagery: I like the images the author includes. They both help the author's communication and are often appealing in some way in their own right. One of my favorite images is the "Dog on the Internet cartoon". It's both relevant and very funny.
Conceptual Richness: This book is unusually rich conceptually.
Sense of Place: I enjoy the author's strong sense of time and place.
Engaging: The book engages the reader. For example, early in the Preface, the author asks the reader "How did you find this book? ... Or did the book find you?"
Readable: The book is easy to read. Some things that contribute to that are:
- The book is short.
- The book is divided into manageable chunks.
- Even with the chunks, the book flows. I'd say it has a breathless quality.
View of Unfolding Future: The author gives a sense of the direction we are going and of how the future may be with respect to findability.
Gripes
Typos: I noticed a couple of typos. They were not confusing.
Index: I often wanted to find something I'd read earlier, especially since I was trying to write a review. The index often failed me.
However, another way to find something in the book is to use the Safari search capability which is available from the O'Reilly catalog entry for this book. The Safari search rarely failed me.
The Slighted Semantic Web: I would have appreciated a deeper, more positive explanation of the semantic web.
Who's the Book for?
For: The author has a paragraph on this question in the Preface to the book. He considers some possibilities but finally declines to commit.
It seems to me that the ideal reader would be intellectually curious and fascinated by the future.
Aside: In the Preface, after declining to say who the book is for, the author asks the reader to finish the book, decide who it is for and send them a copy. Well, I've finished reading the book and I've decided who it's for (see above). Hm, if this review contributes to several more people reading the book, perhaps that's as good as sending one person a copy. Anyway, hopefully this review makes the book a tad more findable for some eventual reader.
Not For: This book would not be good for someone who does not want to think, and especially not about the future.
Final Thoughts
If you have an adventuresome mind and find the subject of interest, I suggest reading this intriguing book about a world moving toward ambient findability.