Nudging to expand user's domain knowledge while exploring linked data

This paper investigates how a user could be aided to explore linked data in a way leading to expanding her domain knowledge. Earlier work has confirmed that users can gain knowledge while exploring information spaces generated from semantic databases. In such exploration, semantic links can play a key role. However, the learning effect of exploration through linked data has not been investigated and is usually unsupported. The prime goal of this paper is to design a way to nudge the user to paths which can have higher knowledge utility, and at the same time avoid known usability drawbacks (e.g. semantic links can provide an overwhelming amount of options leading to confusion and frustration). Three 'nudging' strategies have been proposed. A user study which examines how these strategies can affect the knowledge utility of an exploration path and suggests ways to combine them is presented. The work contributes to research in intelligent means to guide the user navigation through linked data to increase the effectiveness of exploration.