Visualising PIM Behaviour with Markov Chains

This paper presents our initial efforts at visualising personal information behaviour using Markov Chains. We describe a laboratory-based study of email re-finding and use Markov Chains, created from captured user interactions, as a means of understanding the behaviour exhibited. The models we generate not only provide an excellent overview of how the participants interacted with the experimental interface, but, by forcing the experimenters to ask questions they would not normally ask in order to comprehend the models, they also offer a starting point from which a fuller understanding of the exhibited behaviour can be attained. We illustrate this through examples, discuss the advantages and limitations of the approach and outline how we will expand on the work in future research.