Sensemaking in a multimodal collaborative environment

Abstract

I use the brainstorming tool as the blueprint to explain users' cognitive schema, and then using scenario scripts, I propose ways to integrate the intended users’ cognitive processes into the development of our software through the lens of scenario-based design. My application of structured analytic techniques (which can be seen in Figure 1.1) is a new design approach to creating digital tools and software for intelligence analysis. I explain how these techniques are already utilized by intelligence analysts (Beebe & Pherson, 2014) and how these can be integrated into a cognitive and immersive environment to support multiple users and multimodal interactions in a way that is useful for intelligence analysis. Leveraging the capabilities of the cognitive and immersive room, I propose that our software enables a more collaborative and efficient sensemaking process. The specific research questions formulated for this stage of my research is: 1) How can I translate the analog environment of the intelligence analysts to a digital environment?, and 2) How can I incorporate existing tools, such as the sticky-notes tool, to help bolster sensemaking according to Pirolli and Card (2005).

The framework for my research is based on the intelligence analysis sensemaking process (see Figure 2.1), as explained by Pirolli and Card (2005). Integration of the respective iterative loops of foraging for information and sensemaking also informs how a user interface and the system tools should support the intelligence process. I also discuss the sensemaking qualities of the digital brainstorming tool compared to the analog tool from a user study covering nine sessions (n=26).

This dissertation reviews historical trends among capabilities in prior software from other developers, and suggests applying sensemaking theory, participatory design, and scenario-based design to strengthen development of our software’s capabilities. Previous software for intelligence analysis has been discarded by the intelligence community because of two major factors: the difficulty of use for the software is too high, or the software does not meet the needs of the analyst. My research takes a different approach to conceptualizing and designing software for analysts. I propose a new methodology for developing software that will support analysts’ sensemaking by integrating educational and training materials that are already used by analysts in their own domain, such as those described by Beebe and Pherson (2014) or Hall and Citrenbaum (2009). I believe that this will create a more accessible interface and grant affordances that are already familiar to the user base. Providing analysts with a tool that affords a similar interface has proven to have some success with analysts as users, as has been discussed by Smallman (2017). The research in this dissertation focuses how I use the structured analytic technique of brainstorming as the cognitive basis that informs the creation of a digital tool.

The intelligence community needs software that can help them make sense of the information they receive through their work as analysts. The research in this paper establishes intelligence analysts as the use case for applying scenario-based design to generate a more user-centered, human-computer interaction experience. This can be accomplished through scenario scripts that make the cognitive processes and communication expectations from the user more explicit.