This work explores the potential for computational systems to analyze and support individual and collective human sense-making activities. In this context, sense-making refers to the act of mentally and physically relating pieces of information so as to develop an understanding of a particular situation. Human sense-making activities such as brainstorming, decision-making, problem solving, and designing often produce great amounts of information such as notes, sketches, and documents. The participants of sense-making activities are supposed to develop an understanding of the relations among the individual information items. Because these relations often evolve unconsciously and remain within the minds of individuals they are neither accessible to outsiders and computational systems nor can they be recorded or backed up. This work introduces a set of computational mechanisms that infer explicit and implicit relations from the organization and use of information. These relations primarily reflect the spatial arrangement and collaborative use (syntax) rather than the contents (semantics) of information. A second set of computational mechanisms utilizes these relations as a means to help people administer information.

This work investigates various human cognitive concepts involved in inferring and utilizing relations among information items and introduces one corresponding computational mechanism for every cognitive concept examined. The approximated associations between the computational mechanisms and cognitive concepts are valuable to analyze, understand, and computationally support human sense-making activities. The computational mechanisms are divided into two groups: Interpretation and Transformation Algorithms. The former establish probable relations among information items based on the organization, history, and collaborative use of information while the latter utilize these relations as a basis for collecting relevant information, prioritizing information exchanged among multiple collaborating users, and arranging information in various familiar, inspiring, and diagnostic styles.

This work resulted in the development of a software application aimed at supporting individual and collective sense-making activities. The software application introduces a flexible computational framework that allows humans to quickly view, collect, organize, and communicate large amounts of information as well as to facilitate the collaboration among humans with different levels of involvement in large, distributed and decentralized teams across organizational boundaries. The computer application is divided into five Modules. Each Module is focused on supporting one particular group of sense-making activities: The Workspace Module helps users to collect, organize, and comprehend information. The News Module helps users to monitor for additions and modifications to information sources. The Database Module combines and structures information contributed by collaborating users. The Exchange Module prioritizes information exchanged among collaborating users. The Visualization Module analyzes and visualizes information.

EWALL

EWall is an acronym for Electronic Card Wall and used for both the name of this research project as well as the name of the software application developed within the framework of this research project. The objective of the EWall Project is to investigate human sense-making activities with a focus on social interactions that improve the ways in which humans comprehend and share information. The objective of the EWall Application is the development of a flexible computational framework for the support of individual and collective human sense-making activities (Computer Supported Sense-Making). The EWall Application does not present a comprehensive solution for the support of all sense-making activities but offers a series of independent mechanisms for a variety of possible applications.

The EWall project originated in 1996 from within the domain of architectural design and initially focused on the study of individual and collaborative sense-making activities as well as the physical environments and tools suitable for such activities. The goal was to study existing activities and tools as well as to develop new computational means for the support of people working on explorative and creative tasks. The scope of this project widened quickly to draw upon research in psychology, cognitive science, artificial intelligence, organizational management, and information technology. In 2001, the research conclusions translated into specific concepts for the development of the EWall Application. Significant portions of the EWall Application were realized over the subsequent years with a specific focus on its use for decision-making within command and control environments. As of 2004, several components of the EWall Application were made available for evaluation and testing to NAVY related organizations such as NAVAIR, SPAWAR, NPS, and NSW as well as commercial organizations such as ARUP and Saab Aerospace.


Design Principles

The design of the EWall Application is governed by five principles that address issues in human computer interaction, information management, and software design:

1. Adaptation of existing rather than imposition of new work processes

Humans develop unique sense-making processes and dynamically adjust these processes to changing circumstances. While propositions for standardized sense-making processes may help humans to deal with abstract and time-constrained tasks, standardized sense-making processes are often counterproductive for the execution of explorative and creative tasks. This is because the creation of new and unique ideas, views, and solutions primarily emerge through the individuals’ unique modes of working and thinking as well as their distinct backgrounds, expertise, motivations, interests, and foci. The first design principle of the EWall Application is not to propose a particular work process and way of using the system but rather a flexible and adaptive computational framework capable of supporting a diverse range of applications, users and circumstances.

2. Interpretation of user activities through observation rather than user responses

Sense-making often happens in the minds of humans thus making it difficult for computational tools to directly support such activities. For example, a human might detect some idiosyncratically relevant similarities between two text documents. This observation is influential to the human’s subsequent investigation yet inaccessible to a computational system. This problem is commonly dealt with by requiring users to be explicit about their findings and conclusions. For example, a human could be asked to report all discovered relations among documents as a basis for electronic processing. The problem is that such procedures interrupt and defer attention from human sense-making activities. The second design principle of the EWall Application deals with this issue through inferring from computational observations of user activities rather than distracting users with questions about their findings and conclusions.

3. Focus on inspiring rather than directing users

Sense-making is an ongoing process that combines existing knowledge with new information. Consequently, sense-making activities depend on the availability of relevant information. The relevance, availability, and applicability of information for specific sense-making tasks are often difficult to determine. For example, information retrieval software such as web search engines might return search results that accurately match a specific query. However, sense-making tasks not only benefit from information that precisely fits a specific domain but also from information that inspires different perspectives, questions previous considerations, and encourages explorations into similar or tangentially related domains. The third design principle of the EWall Application is to provide users with information that may inspire alternative views and to avoid singularly directional sense-making processes. In other words, the EWall Application does not want to internalize intelligence but to engage, utilize and foster the intelligence of humans.

4. Focus on the context rather than the content of information

Sense-making involves the accumulation of content as well as the adaptation and formulation of context. Content refers to data, information, and knowledge while context refers to the relations among content items. Computer applications are more commonly used for the management of content while humans seem more successful with the formulation and analysis of context. Computational possibilities for the formulation of context are often limited to the comparison of words and file information contained in electronic documents. For example, a computational system might relate two text documents because both documents contain the same uncommonly used word. The fourth design principle of the EWall Application is to formulate context based on an analysis of the history, organization and collaborative use of information rather than only a comparison of information contents. The computational mechanisms introduced by the EWall Application are designed to explore alternative and human-like ways of formulating context that complement rather than substitute existing methods.

5. Focus on modular rather than integrated solutions

Humans choose among a variety of tools to support their sense-making activities. The tools help humans to externalize knowledge, visualize information, and search for relevant data. Typical tools include whiteboards and sheets of paper for drawing and writing, pin boards and tabletops for spatially arranging documents, and web search engines for exploring relevant data on the Internet. The choice and combination of tools depends on the user’s experience and preference, the task, and the current circumstances. The ability to combine and choose from a variety of tools is essential for humans to deal creatively and effectively with unique sense-making tasks. The fifth design principle of EWall is to provide users with a highly modular application that can be combined and customized for a variety of different users, settings, and applications. The modularity of the EWall Application not only allows for more flexibility but also ensures user control over most parts of the software by allowing users to add and remove individual software components.


Problem Seeking

The EWall Project builds on William Pena’s Problem Seeking methodology, a research conducted at CRS and first published in 1977. The methodology was conceived to support meetings with large numbers of participants in shared physical locations and exclusive of computer technologies. The methodology introduces processes and techniques for the collaborative recording and organization of issues conceived during meetings. The key concept is to capture comments, suggestions and ideas on small paper cards. The cards are pinned up on walls and organized under predefined categories such as Goals, Facts, Concepts, Needs, and Problems. Participants continuously add, compare, discuss and rearrange cards in order to develop a shared understanding of their various opinions and suggestions. A card usually contains a keyword, a graphical icon and some explanatory text. While the keywords are often sufficient to remind people of a particular issue, the graphical icons help people to memorize and locate cards. The creation of cards may be seen as a means to externalize the knowledge of individuals and to allow this knowledge to enter the domain of discourse of all participants. Since its introduction, Pena’s methodology has become popular for meetings of various kinds. These meetings are not always conducted according to Pena’s specifications but have since produced multiple methodological variations.

The advantages of Pena’s methodology include the fast accessibility to large amounts of information through the physical representation, graphical enhancement, and clear categorization of individual information items. The contents developed during meetings remain visually accessible to everyone thus allowing participants to keep track of previously discussed issues, to switch more easily between subjects and to explore relations among individual contributions. This evolving information space also provides a basis for participants to establish a group identity, to sustain mutual awareness, and to develop a shared understanding. The accumulation and combination of individual contributions may be viewed as a shared memory or discussion record whose contents and relations among content items continuously change as determined by the collaborative effort of all participants.

The disadvantages of Pena’s methodology lie in the static nature of card arrangements, the fast accumulation of cards, and the various efforts involved in conducting professional Problem Seeking sessions. Large card arrangements are difficult to rearrange and restore. Moreover, there is a limit to the amount of cards that humans can visually and mentally relate. Card arrangements also do not effectively reflect the dynamically changing relationships among cards. Furthermore, the creation and the grouping of cards require skilled people not only capable of understanding but also of evaluating, abstracting and graphically representing the issues discussed during meetings. As a consequence, these types of meetings are often rendered by professional services that employ and train people specifically for such assignments. The dependency on skilled people prevents the spontaneous application of Pena’s methodology.

Essential conclusions from the analysis and subsequent studies of Pena’s work reflect on the ways in which people convert, standardize, abstract, associate, and relate data, information and knowledge. These particular activities are not only encouraged through the creation and use of cards but are also present in the creation and use of several everyday objects such as index, trading and game cards.

1. Converting

Humans like to think of data, information and knowledge as objects that they collect, compare, and organize. The conversion of data and information (as well as the externalization of knowledge) into virtual and physical objects accommodates this way of thinking. Dealing with virtual and physical objects such as files on a computer desktop or documents on a table enables humans to engage their motor abilities, vision and touch senses. The combined use of mind, body, and sensory functions effectively increases a human’s ability to deal with complex sense-making tasks. For example, a professor memorizing the names of his students usually engages his visual senses by associating the names and faces of students during teaching hours. The professor might also choose to create small index cards that display the pictures and names of students thus allowing the professor to easily remove the cards of students whose names he already memorized and to spatially arrange cards in ways that best support his way of memorizing.

2. Standardizing

A standardized card size and layout is convenient to collect, compare, and organize cards. The benefits of standardized objects are present in various everyday objects. For example, index cards, credit cards, business cards, slides, photographs and postcards are usually of equal size and layout so they can conveniently be stored, accessed, and processed. One of the disadvantages of standardized objects is their dependency on predefined templates. These templates have to account for a wide range of eventualities as later modifications of objects modeled after a particular template can become very complicated and time intensive. For example, a professor might create index cards for each of his students indicating their names, countries of origin, and ages. Later additions, such as for example the inclusion of the students GPA’s, would require a modification to the card template as well as the subsequent adjustment of all previously created cards. If on the other hand the professor had conceived a template that accounts for all eventualities then most of the card space would be occupied by rarely used information.

3. Abstracting

The abstract representation of data, information and knowledge with cards engages a human’s visual cognition in ways that increases information access time and allows for the processing of large amounts of information. Furthermore, the process of creating cards requires users to circumscribe the contents associated with cards in a visually and mentally fast accessible and easily comprehensible format thus encouraging a more careful analysis and understanding of the contents associated with cards. The card template suggested by Pena consumes little space and offers a good balance between abstract visual and textual reminders. It allows users to easily memorize and recall the contents associated with cards as well as to quickly locate and compare cards. The concept and use of abstract visual and textual reminders is also present in various everyday objects. For example, desktop icons and thumbnail views allow users to easily locate and organize computer files. Military ribbons use abstract visual representations to provide service, mission and award specific information on a small clothing area. Traffic signs depend on abstract visual representations that are easy to spot and understand by pedestrians and car drivers.

4. Associating

A card usually does not contain information per se but only serves as a reminder for the presence of a particular piece of data, information or knowledge. The separation between cards and content associated with cards allows for the compact visualization and organization of large amounts of content. A card may be viewed as a meaningfully labeled hyperlink to a piece of content available in a remote location. This particular function is embodied in several everyday objects such as Post-it’s and trading cards. Post-it’s are commonly used for taking notes and for labeling physical objects. Trading cards usually reference people and physical objects. Even though the printing costs, the layout, and the amount of information contained on a trading card do not differ significantly, the trading card values vary tremendously. Typically the value of a trading card increases if the trading card closes a gap in a sequence of trading cards or if the trading card represents a popular person or object. In other words, the trading card value emerges through its relation with other trading cards and through its association with particular instances of human knowledge.

5. Relating

Pena’s Problem Seeking methodology engages users in a process of arranging and rearranging cards. Users benefit from this process by developing a good understanding of the card contents and the relations among cards (context). The use of game cards displays interesting parallels with Pena’s card arrangements. Players arrange game cards in an attempt to explore and visualize groups and sequences of game cards. The distribution and arrangement of game cards among players creates a meaningful context that was not present in the previously shuffled deck of game cards. In other words, the meaning contained in an arrangement of game cards exceeds the meaning contained in the combined contents of all game cards. However, the game card contents as well as the subsequently created context are often only meaningful to those players that know the game development and that understand the rules of the game. The same is true for most arrangements of objects meaning that different people often interpret arrangements of objects differently. Complementing arrangements with explicit hints about their organizational structures may reduce the number of possible interpretations. For example, newspapers provide hints about their organizational structures through the positioning of text blocks and headings as well as the use of distinct font styles and font sizes. The absence of such hints may render essential contextual information inaccessible to outsiders. This problem is particularly noticeable in Pena’s Problem Seeking methodology where often only the authors of a card arrangement understand its hidden meaning. Another observation regarding Pena’s Problem Seeking methodology refers to the use of card arrangements during collaborative sense-making tasks. People of different backgrounds, interests and foci have their unique ways of relating information. The collaborative development of card arrangements can help people to determine intersecting views as well as to develop a shared understanding of a particular information space. Imagine for example two people organizing a set of stamps. One person might be more mathematically focused thus preferring an organization by stamp sizes and values. The other person might be more visually oriented thus preferring an organization by shapes and colors. Through the collaborative effort the two parties learn about each other’s views and might even conclude their efforts with a solution that intersects their personal preferences.



EWALL CARDS

EWall Cards present a computational version of the physical cards proposed in Pena’s Problem Seeking methodology. All components of the EWall Application use EWall Cards as the standard means for representing data and information. EWall Cards may also be evaluated as a potential replacement for file and desktop icons of computer systems. EWall Cards maintain many qualities of their physical counterparts while also introducing modifications and additions to the original card concept, layout and functionality.

As with physical cards, the making of EWall Cards continues to involve humans in the processes of converting, standardizing, abstracting, associating, and relating information. The computational nature of EWall Cards allows for additional functionality and alternative applications. Three main differences distinguish EWall Cards from their physical counterparts:

A first difference concerns the issue of card ownership. While Pena’s Problem Seeking methodology stresses the advantages of cards as shared objects, the EWall project introduces functionality that encourages a stronger relationship between EWall Cards and their authors. For example, Pena’s Problem Seeking sessions commonly engage specialists responsible for the creation of cards. The EWall Application provides the functionality for users to more easily engage in the process of creating EWall Cards. Users also control the access and distribution of their EWall Cards. Furthermore, the user histories of EWall Cards are carefully recorded to ensure authorship rights and to reconstruct the shared development of ideas. The ability to create, control and track EWall Cards is optional yet available for users that wish to obtain a sense of ownership over their contributions. Through the resolution of ownership issues EWall Cards can become the means for converting data, information and knowledge into a currency- or trading card-like format that can easily be collected, compared, organized, presented, stored, shared, exchanged, and sold. In this regard the EWall Card may be viewed as a “transitional object” that a user can possess, view as something personal he knows and understands, and protect against modifications by the software and/or other users.

A second difference concerns the card contents. Card contents in Pena’s Problem Seeking methodology usually represent hints and reminders of human knowledge such as ideas and concepts. EWall Cards share this particular quality but also allow for annotations, file attachments, and hyperlinks to data and information sources. With this additional functionality EWall Cards remain visually abstract while also providing fast access to relevant and more detailed information. This functionality allows for the concurrent management of pointers to human knowledge, computer files of various formats, as well as data and information located in remote locations.

A third difference concerns the card layout. Even though the traditional card layout did not suggest a specific location for graphics, keywords and textual information, cards created during programming sessions often complied with arbitrary standards to ensure the easy comparison of large numbers of cards. EWall Cards suggest a standardized layout yet do not exclude customized designs. The standardized layout of EWall Cards fosters the direct comparison of different types of information such as hyperlinks, emails, notes, and documents. Furthermore, the layout of EWall Cards encourages an objective evaluation and comparison of information based on content rather than type, source, author, and modification date.

Layout and Functionality

Both, the layout and the functionality of EWall Cards are highly modular. This means that almost every visual component and computational feature can be individually turned on and off, and that additional visual components and computational features can easily be integrated. Furthermore, the colors and fonts of all EWall Card components are customizable. The sizes of EWall Cards are also variable though working with only one size significantly simplifies comparisons and organization. EWall Cards are visually subdivided into five segments that can expand and contract depending on their contents:



EWALL MODULES

The EWall Application is divided into five modules. The modules present users with the environment and functionality for the use and management of EWall Cards. The modules are aimed at making administering, monitoring, collecting, exchanging, and visualizing information more intuitive. The modules support the manual, semi-automatic, and automatic creation of EWall Cards as well as the search, exchange, and organization of EWall Cards. The separation of the EWall Application into multiple modules also assures the easy customization, maintenance and scalability of the EWall Applications as well as its connectivity with other software applications.

The EWall Modules dynamically adapt to users and changing circumstances while also trying to stimulate human sense-making activities. The goal is to make humans more situation-aware by exploiting the human capacity for visual problem solving and to make the EWall Modules more situation-aware by inferring meaning from the observation of human activities. In other words, the EWall Modules promote an environment in which computers and people make each other more knowledgeable. This is implemented by virtue of advocating a circular information flow between the users and the EWall Modules. Through this circular information flow both the users and the EWall Modules gradually develop a shared understanding of particular tasks and continuously adapt to changing processes and circumstances.