An Exploratory Study of Sensemaking in Collaborative Information Seeking

With the ubiquity of current information retrieval systems, users move beyond individual searching to performing complex information seeking tasks together with collaborators for social, leisure or professional purposes. In this paper, we investigate the sensemaking behaviour of online searchers in terms of sensemaking strategies, sharing of information, construction of a shared representation and sharing of task progress and status. We also looked into the support provided to them by search systems in the collaborative information seeking process. We report the results of an observational user study where 24 participants, in groups of 3, completed a travel planning task. Our results show that current tools do not sufficiently support searchers in most aspects of the collaborative sensemaking process. Our findings have implications for the design of collaborative information seeking systems.

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