Can #toolsforthought like RoamResearch, Obsidian, and Notion actually help us think better? If so, how? In our #UIST2024 paper, we distill hypertext patterns from real-world usage that augment sensemaking by addressing temporal + spatial fragmentation of sensemaking

I see this work as complementary to the rich practical wisdom many have shared in the #toolsforthought community - I hope that connecting this wisdom with research on hypertext and sensemaking can enrich our understanding of how these tools can help us think better

If this sounds interesting to you, dig into the paper here: And come chat with us during/after the "Learning to Learn" session at 3:35p on Wed 10/16 @ #UIST2024! @Sky_zsy will be presenting!

You might also enjoy digging into the related work I did with @RobertHaisfield and @balOShere (who are also co-authors on this work!) as a precursor and companion to this work:

And my related 3-5 year research through design study on growing new scholarly communication infrastructures for synthesis built from hypertext patterns of sensemaking:

"Today, however, hypertext is often disconnected from discussions of the future of sensemaking" There is some prior work discussing hypertext and sensemaking in our Hypertext 2022 paper ;) ps paper looks awesome, looking forward to reading!

🙌🙏🙌🙏🙌🙏

Huge congrats on paper! @JoelChan86 @RobertHaisfield I have a question for you, but to get there I need to unpack my observations a bit: You define sensemaking as a process of developing a schema. And schema as one's understanding of the domain. The workflows participants describe are roughly fit into 2 categories: 1. Conventional note/reference management system Which is definitely helpful in the process of sensemaking, but I would hesitate to characterize it as Augmented sensemaking. It only indirectly influences the schema. It's more like Augmented Information Management. 2. Sensemaking system. Working with questions/hypothesis/claims/. Creating "incubators" and active agents that help to explore connections between things. Obviously 2 categories are interconnected. One thing I notice about many participants: Most of their sensemaking happens inside notes. Their "distillation/incubation" process itself is not strongly augmented by the tool. The tool's prime purpose is information storage/retrieval. So my question: Is this a valid observation? Or am I missing something? This second category is way more interesting for me, and it's the focus of my research. Again, categories are connected. But for me, augmented sensemaking implies deeper integration between the tool and the thought process. The tool embeds the domain schema and provides a backbone for the whole research project. It helps us to see/apply knowledge structures and draw meaningful connections between concepts. At the end of the article, you mention grounded theory, So, I see the sensemaking environment as an infrastructure for grounded theory. I have attached the article where I describe my take on augmented sensemaking with a full case study. Okay, so the question evolved into a pretty big reply🙂 Curious to hear you thoughts!

@RobertHaisfield Thanks for engaging! 1. I think you're spot on about the note types being more tightly integrated with sensemaking proper (in that they instantiate parts of the overall evolving schema).

Great work!

I'm so in awe of your research work!