Dan Russell's Home Page & Site
 
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  I work at Google.

  I write.  I analyze.  I experiment.  I do field studies and I try to understand
  what makes Google users tick.

  Why do they sometimes query Google for [ first ], and then not click on anything? 

  Why do some Google users only ask one query, while others can go on and on?   
  What's different about their search experiences? 

  Why?

  How do Google users measure success?  What constitutes failure?  How can the
  search engine know in order to make the next time you search that much better?

  Most recently, I've been focusing on what skills searchers need to have in
  order to be effective searchers.  Not surprisingly, just a few key skills can
  make your searching MUCH better.

 

 

 

  More about Dan...

Me, having fun, diving with a video camera, Utila, Bay Islands, Honduras, 2005

 

Most Recent Work (i.e., right now...)

  • Special issue of HCI Journal on Sensemaking  Peter Pirolli and I are working on a special issue of the HCI Journal with a set of extended papers from this year's sensemaking workshop.  Unfortunately, this will be just a subset of the workshop.  We expect to see this issue in late 2009. 

  • Special issue of International Journal of Universal Accessibility  I'm putting together this special issue as a Festschrift for Norbert Streitz, recognizing his work in many areas (esp. distributed collaboration, integrated information workplaces, vertical and tabletop displays).    We expect to see this issue in late 2009 as well. 


Upcoming classes

  • No more for the rest of the year!   (Time to take a break...)  

 

Upcoming  talks

  • The future of scholarly research  Panelist at Thesaurus Lingue Gracae conference at UC Irvine, Irvine, CA.  (October 29, 2009)

  • internet search skills are fundamental for all learners   Panel at  "Breakthrough Learning in a Digital Age"  Google, Mountain View, CA. (October 28, 2009)


Select Recent Presentations (not all of them, thank heavens)

Finding what you seek: How Google users think about search (and how they actually search), UC Merced, KL 202, Invited lecture (part of "Mind, Science & Society" series, October 12, 2009)

Seeing the invisible, Thinking the impossible, Asking the inconceivable,  UC Irvine, Langson Library , Invited lecture (April 29, 2009)

How to teach Basic Web Search, class for Google.org, Nairobi, Kenya (via videoconference)  (March 19, 2009)

Basic Web Search,  Mountain View Public Library, Mountain View, CA (March 14, 2009)

Finding what you seek:  How Google users think about search (and how they actually search),  Harvard, Initiative for Innovative Computing (Feb 11, 2009) 

Google Basic Search Skills, (closed class for Boulder Unified School District teachers), Boulder, CO  Become a Super Internet Searcher: Slides

Large data sets change the way we think about HCI, HCIC Conference, Fraser, CO (Feb 6, 2009)

Advanced Google Search Skills, Santa Clara City Library (Feb 3, 2009)

Become a Super Internet Searcher Slides for RAFT Google Basic Search Skills, RAFT, San Jose, CA  (Jan 29, 2009)

(Re)Searching with Google: Looking for the core of expertise (PDF 4.7 Mb) A talk given at UCSF library in the Lange Room.  Topics: searcher behavior, definition of expert search behavior, the 6 dimensions of search expertise, a few examples of skills that expert searchers have.   San Francisco, CA (Nov 7, 2008).   The video for this talk can be seen here.

Link to materials for Google Docs and Spreadsheets class Google Docs and Spreadsheets Class, RAFT, San Jose, CA (July 25, 2008)

Google Earth class  Google Earth Class, RAFT, San Jose, CA (Oct 2, 2008) (July 24, 2008)

Become a Super Internet Searcher  (PDF 3.0Mb)  Basic search class, RAFT, San Jose, CA    (Sept 25, 2008)
 
Search Strategies and Tactics: Internet search for teachers.    (PPT 6.0 Mb) A 90 minute hands-on tutorial on search intended for teachers.  Covers keyword choice, query refinement, other kinds of media, advanced operators (minus, site:, link:), credibility assessment.   Presented at Google, Mountain View, CA (Sept 10, 2008)

Library Internet Search Skills presentation  (PDF 3.5Mb)  Basics of Internet Search.  A hands-on class I give at Bay Area libraries, schools, etc. (2008)

Advanced Search Techniques (PDF 5.6Mb)   How to be a super internet searcher--advanced.   Presented at NASA Ames. (April 16, 2008) 

How humans behave under high task interruption loads  (PDF 1.1Mb)    Presentation at FOO Camp in Sebastopol, CA (June 23, 2007)
        session on human attention, with Kathy Sierra and Linda Stone

Searching for the mind of the searcher  (PDF 2.3Mb)   Slides from my keynote at the Joint Conference on Digital Libraries (JCDL) (June 20, 2007)
 
What do people think about when they use search engines?  (PDF 8.0Mb)  Slides from the Killam Lecture, Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia (October 4, 2006)

What do Google Searchers Think About?  (PDF.  5.3Mb)    A presentation I gave at Stanford (PCD) on March 10th, 2006.

  

Classes Content for Classes I Teach

I often teach classes on how to use Google more effectively. 
(Google is easy to use now; but with a few tips, you can REALLY improve you ability to find things.)

These are the materials I use.  If you're a teacher and want to re-use some of these materials, feel free!
You might drop me a line to let me know what you're doing, but really, use with abandon!
Also note that I change these files frequently as Google changes and as we add new methods.

Basic class:  Become a Super Internet Searcher: Slides  (PDF, 3.5Mb; covers basic web architecture and basic search techniques)

Advanced class:  Advanced Search Techniques: Slides  (PDF, 5.6Mb; has a good problem set; research literacy; overview of different Google content types; assessing web page credibility) 

Practicum class:  [ TO COME ]  (PDF, 2.6Mb; advanced problem set; review of CSEs, Alerts, search web history, Toolbar)

Teacher's class: Search Strategies and Tactics: Internet search for teachers.    (PPT 6.0 Mb; A 2 hour hands-on tutorial on search intended for teachers.  Covers keyword choice, query refinement, other kinds of media, advanced operators (minus, site:, link:), credibility assessment.  All in 2 hours.  Whew!)

Google Earth: Google Earth Introduction;  Google Earth Project Class

Search for Librarians:  Top 12 Things You Need to Know  (PDF, 3.4Mb; covers 12 short lessons on different methods for search.  1 hour class.  Posted: October 14, 2009)

If you're attending one of classes at RAFT, please fill out this form...    Click here to fill out the form


Essays

             Running the Boston Marathon  (1993) Running a marathon isn't just about pain,
                                                                             but it makes a different way of seeing the world

                Trip report from CSCW 2006 (2006) My thoughts about the conference  (PDF 3.5Mb)

                Diving the Channel Islands (1997)  Diving the Channel islands as ecstatic experience

                Visiting Falling Water (1998) Seeing Frank Lloyd Wright's house for the first time

                Life dot plots (2006)  (2006) A simple visualization of your life--one day = 1 dot.  It all fits on 1 slide. 

                A paen to making applesauce (1986)  Simple food, simple task, a revelation.  

 
 

Book Recommendations

 I seem to have become the scribe for irregularly scheduled book club meetings.  Here are the last few times I've sat down with good friends in a nice restaurant and we've talked about books.  

HICSS Book Club Recommendations 2005 (Kona, Hawaii) 

HICSS Book Club Recommendations 2006 (Poipu Hawai'i)

HICSS Book Club Recommendations 2007 (Kona, Hawai'i) 

HCIC Book Club Recommendations 2007 (Tabernash, CO)

INTERACT Book Club Recommendations 2007 (Rio de Janeiro, Brazil)      

Tahoe Offsite Book Recommendations 2008 (Tahoe, Nevada)

HICSS Book Club Recommendations 2009 (Kona, Hawai'i)

Recent & Interesting Papers

Russell, D. M., Oren, M.  Retrospective Cued Recall: A method for accurately recalling previous user behaviors, HICSS conference, Hawai’i (January, 2009)  PDF

Beymer, D., Russell, D. M., Orton, P.Z. An Eye Tracking Study of How Pictures Influence Online Reading, INTERACT Conference, Rio de Janerio, Brazil (September, 2007) PDF-515Kb

Grimes, C., Tang, D., Russell, D. M.  Query logs alone are not enough WWW 2007, Workshop on Query Logs Analysis: Social and Technological Challenges, Banff, Canada (May, 2007) PDF-288Kb

Lam, H., Russell, D. M., Tang, D.,Munzner, T., “Session Viewer: supporting visual exploratory analysis of web session logs”  VAST-2007, Sacramento, CA.  (October, 2007)  

Orton, P. Z., Beymer, D., Russell, D. M., “Computer text line lengths affect reading and learning” Training and Development Journal (2007)

Russell, D. M., Grimes, C. Assigned and self-chosen tasks are not the same in web search Proceedings of the 40th Annual International Conference on Systems & Software, HICSS 2007, Kona, Hawai’i, (Jan, 2007)

Russell, D. M., Card, S., Pirolli, P., Stefik, M. The cost structure of sensemaking, Proc. of CHI 1993 (1993)  (PDF h237Kb)

 

Class Materials & Presentations

Older, Archival Works


CHI 2009 Workshop on Sensemaking  Here's the description of the sensemaking workshop Peter Pirolli and I ran in April, 2009. 
A list of the accepted papers can be found on the Accepted Papers for CHI 2009 Workshop on Sensemaking page. 

CHI 2008 Workshop on Sensemaking Workshop for the CHI conference 2008 on the topic of Sensemaking.  Official CHI 2008 Sensemaking Workshop Page  You can go there to see the papers we accepted.  (We had a 50% acceptance rate!)  (April 6, 2008)

HICSS 2007 Workshop:  I co-chaired a minitrack for HICSS 2007 with Jonathan Grudin.   

In 2008 and 2009, Fernanda Viegas and Karrie Karahalios have picked up this minitrack.  
     HCISS 41 Minitrack on "Social Spaces: Production and consumption of good in digital collectives"

    • Subpages (7): A paen to making applesauce BBQ pizza recipe / psuedo-naan CHI 2009 Sensemaking Workshop Accepted Papers HICSS 2009 Book Club More about Dan Papers by friends UC Merced Talk: Oct 12, 2009 KL 202, 2:30PM

    Attachments (2)

    • Researching-with-Google.pdf - on Nov 8, 2008 4:32 AM by Dan Russell (version 1)
      4574k View Download
    • Retrospective-Cued-Recall-HICSS-2009.pdf - on May 22, 2009 4:40 AM by Dan Russell (version 1)
      753k View Download