1 Synthesis

2 Social Contexts Intelligence Community Politicians Voters First Responders Civilians in Disasters Doctors Patients Lawyers Teachers Students/Families

3 Communication Needs Intelligence Community, First Responders, Civilians in Disasters –Many major challenges center around effective sharing and communication of information between users and from officials to citizens. Children –Communicating information in a way children can understand

4 Information Influencers Doctors –Drug Representatives Politicians –Lobbyists Voters –529s / Special Interest Groups

5 Drug Reps / Lobbyists / 529s What do these groups provide? Why do they do it? Why don’t we see similar groups influencing first responders, lawyers, teachers, or students?

6 Information Providers Why to the users accept information from biased providers (like 529s, lobbyists, drug reps)? What is the parallel for other contexts, like patients, teachers, students/families? How would you answer this question? –How does google work?How does google work?

7 Information Challenges Much information is too complex for non- experts to understand –E.g. a congressional representative who has a background in law trying to understand the need to fund a supercollider in a physics lab Even for experts, there is too much information to keep up on –E.g. Doctors learning about new drugs and treatments

8 More Information Challenges Some information is hard to find because of lack of expertise –Users don’t even know what to look for because they don’t know it exists –E.g. Put together an NSF grant application Other information is hard to handle because there is so much and it can conflict –E.g. medical advice online from well intentioned but ignorant users

9 And More Information Challenges Answers to some questions are not contained in one place –E.g. Find an MP3 of a song that was on the Billboard top 10 that features a cowbell.MP3 Billboard top 10cowbell. Other questions have no direct answers –E.g. For lawyers looking for legal precedents, there may be no case with exactly the same circumstances as the one they are working on

10 Information Needs Synthesis, summarization, and simplification of complex ideas Aggregation of distributed data Effective communication of information Access to information sources Insight into what information is authoritative, correct, trustworthy –Can lead to a need for personalization