Data Priori Computing

A year ago I discussed the possibility of an emerging frontier of computing ... "smart machine, smart human".  Instead of me sitting in/on a machine's hard-coded data processing loop, the machine uses a mesh of sensors and processors to look over my shoulder and anticipate what information I need to maker better decisions.

It's a "machine on my loop" instead of "me in/on a machine's loop".

Walt Mossberg's WSJ review of a new browser add-on called Digital Folio made me wonder whether smart computing will be more about data than function.  What makes Digital Folio compelling is that it's tightly focused on one type of data (price) within a specific context (shopping), and that the add-on has been designed to smartly and unobtrusively weave "just enough" additional data into the user's sensemaking work.

At a more general level, I'm beginning to wonder if the primary "smart machine" design challenge is to make it fun for the novice user to "play" with them.  And, to make it unobtrusively slip into the user's normal sensemaking flow.
If that's the case, then what makes a smart machine fun/playful?  Here's some snap reactions on a design approach:

• Identify the one/few data items that are the "pivot points" of a decision/sensemaking context.  For Digital Folio, these include the product and its price, along with the context of shopping for electronics equipment.
• Identify what makes these data item(s) most intriguing within the context ... specifically, determine how the core data item values/relationships shift between ambiguity and clarity.  For Digital Folio, price is the key data item.
• Finally, create a compelling "in-the-flow" user interface so that a novice user can "play with / probe" the data and its connections within a specific sensemaking context.

The design work order ....

• Identify key data within a specific sensemaking context
• Design a UI that  (a) makes key data/connections compelling, (b) allows the user to immediately see interesting possibilities in the data/connections, and (c) enables the user to easily explore the data/connections
• Define the required functionality

... reverses the typical machine design process:

• Define function(s) that automate one or more tasks
• Create a user interface for a specific user community-need
• Design the data schema

Since the user's key sensemaking/decision data precedes everything, I thought the term Data Priori Computing captured the overall concept which:

• focuses on sensemaking-centric data (traditional computing focuses on machine-function-centric data)
• leverages the user's contextual flow of sensemaking data to create a framework for the emergence of presentation and function, possibly guided by the user's interaction with the data
• is a context-centric bundle of data-presentation-function where the data is a tightly focused nexus around which all sensemaking and decision making revolves (it is not BI or data mining)

BTW, when I googled "Data Priori" the only place I saw this term used in a similar way was "The Global Data Palette: Massive Databases and the Reformation of Content Creation in Film/Video and Music/Sound Art Practice" ... data-priori movie-making.