As we think, our stream of consciousness seamlessly flows in and out of the concepts and topics that we are thinking about. Stream of conciousness navigates through our mental space at various degrees of engagement with the topic at hand. We can hop from one topic to another and focus our attention on a specific detail of a given thought, then a detail of that detail that may lead to another topic.
Physical and electronic artefacts help us focus our attention and guide the path of our stream. As I read a novel, the words and sentences are guiding my stream of conciousness in a given direction, that of the story plot as it unfolds.
The first paragraph of a story often covers mutiple levels of physical and emotional reality. This allows the author to set the scene and put the reader in context.
"The spaceship reduced its speed as it approached the federal galactic prison. Peter stared into the portal to see his final destination. All he could see was his reflection staring back at him. The grimace on his face reminded him of the continuous pain in his gut from yesterday's beating."
We read novels for entertainment and gladly let the author take over the control of the flow.
When we engage in professional activity, we need to be in control the flow.
Electronic media has given us greater control over the paths we can take as we use this support to guide our stream of conciousness while gathering knowledge and acting on it.
Formalising the various levels of engagement we have with information can guide us as we design information spaces that support professional activity.
The topics covered by the information system are defined by the knowlge space of the activity. Levels of engagement are either common to all knowledge gathering activity, or specialised for a given task.
Following is an initial list of engagement levels:
1- Scan : scanning lists to identify potential content of interest.
2- Peek : looking for additional information to asses if an item is worth following up on.
3- Follow-up : zooming one's attention on an item having decided it is of interest based on the information obtained through scanning or peeking.
4- Consume: active reading, analyzing content of interest.
6- Transform: transforming the content by either sharing, contributing or changing the content.
There probably is significant research and documentation on the topic of cognitive engagement levels and how these can be applied to designing information systems. If anyone knows of one or more existing taxonomies of engagements please advise.
