"How can a horse be in two places at once?": Group sensemaking using diverse and ambiguous information

Sensemaking seeks to understand complex situations and extract meaning from diverse, and sometimes conflicting, information. We observed groups attempting to construct narratives from diverse forms of fabricated incident... [ view full abstract ]

Sensemaking seeks to understand complex situations and extract meaning from diverse, and sometimes conflicting, information. We observed groups attempting to construct narratives from diverse forms of fabricated incident information (reflective of the ever increasing diversity available on the internet) deliberately designed to be ambiguous. We found that groups demonstrated a rich range of convergent and divergent behaviours and manipulations of paper-based stimuli. We conclude by providing discussion of how these insights can inform the design of web-based collaborative sensemaking tools.