---
source_url: "https://andymatuschak.org/files/papers/Pirolli%2C%20Card%20-%202005%20-%20The%20sensemaking%20process%20and%20leverage%20points%20for%20analyst%20technology%20as.pdf"
fetched_at: "2026-07-15T21:24:00Z"
content_type: "application/pdf"
notes: "Untrusted external reference captured as local Objective resource for Memory sensemaking design. This is a summary/extraction for design discussion, not project authority."
---

# Pirolli & Card (2005): The sensemaking process and leverage points for analyst technology

## Citation / source

Peter Pirolli and Stuart Card, PARC. "The Sensemaking Process and Leverage Points for Analyst Technology as Identified Through Cognitive Task Analysis" (2005).

Source PDF: <https://andymatuschak.org/files/papers/Pirolli%2C%20Card%20-%202005%20-%20The%20sensemaking%20process%20and%20leverage%20points%20for%20analyst%20technology%20as.pdf>

## Core model

The paper frames intelligence analysis as a sensemaking task:

```text
Information -> Schema -> Insight -> Product
```

The analyst transforms raw data into progressively more structured representations so expertise can apply and so results can be communicated.

The paper's notional data flow is especially relevant to Yoi Memory design:

```text
External data sources
  -> shoebox
  -> evidence file
  -> schemas
  -> hypotheses
  -> presentation / work product
```

- **External data sources**: raw material, mostly text in the studied setting.
- **Shoebox**: the smaller subset collected as relevant for the task.
- **Evidence file**: extracted snippets / nuggets from the shoebox, plus low-level inferences.
- **Schemas**: re-representations that organize information for analysis.
- **Hypotheses**: tentative conclusions with supporting or disconfirming evidence.
- **Product**: report / presentation / action suited for communication.

## Two major loops

The process has two interacting loops rather than a simple linear pipeline.

### Foraging loop

Activities aimed at finding and selecting information:

- search and filter external data sources;
- collect potentially relevant material into a shoebox;
- read and extract evidence snippets;
- follow up on questions generated by extracted evidence.

The paper highlights the exploration / enrichment / exploitation tradeoff:

- **Exploration**: monitor or search more of the information space; increases recall.
- **Enrichment**: narrow the collected set into smaller, higher-precision subsets.
- **Exploitation**: read/extract/analyze the chosen material more thoroughly.

Analyst tooling can help by changing the cost structure of search, scanning, assessment, selection, attention shifting, and follow-up searches.

### Sensemaking loop

Activities aimed at structuring and reasoning:

- schematize evidence;
- build a case;
- generate / manage hypotheses;
- marshal evidence for and against hypotheses;
- tell a story / produce a report;
- re-evaluate based on feedback or new evidence.

The paper emphasizes opportunistic mixing of bottom-up and top-down processing:

- **Bottom-up**: data triggers schemas, relations, hypotheses, and products.
- **Top-down**: hypotheses / client feedback trigger new searches, re-reading, and re-organization.

## Leverage points

### Foraging loop leverage

- Cost structure of exploration / enrichment / exploitation.
- Cost structure of scanning, recognizing, and selecting items for attention.
- Cost of shifting attentional control to a new domain or task.
- Cost of follow-up searches generated by extracted information.
- Broad-band low-fidelity assessment plus narrow-band high-fidelity processing is a useful design pattern.

### Sensemaking loop leverage

- Span of attention for evidence, hypotheses, and evidentiary relations.
- Generation of alternative hypotheses.
- Confirmation bias and failure to seek disconfirming evidence.
- External representations can expand working memory for evidence/hypothesis structures.
- Tools should help distribute attention toward diagnostic evidence and disconfirming relations.

## Implications for Yoi Memory Objective

This paper directly supports the Objective's direction that effective Memory is not just durable storage or retrieval count.

Useful design implications:

1. **Task-bound shoebox**
   - For each Ticket / Objective / question, provide a bounded collection of potentially relevant materials.
   - Include provenance and why each item was collected.

2. **Evidence file**
   - Extract snippets from source material with source, applicability, confidence, and context.
   - Evidence should be usable for support and disconfirmation, not only recall.

3. **Schema / representation layer**
   - The system should help create intermediate structures: timelines, entity/relation maps, alternatives, checklists, hypothesis spaces, decision tables.
   - These are separate from raw Memory records.

4. **Hypotheses and alternatives**
   - Record competing explanations, rejected alternatives, open questions, and evidence gaps.
   - Avoid only storing final decisions.

5. **Disconfirming evidence**
   - Reviewer / Orchestrator support should explicitly search for contradiction and diagnostic evidence.
   - This belongs in Skill guidance and typed review tooling, not in a separate Knowledge store.

6. **Metrics**
   - Measure whether Memory changes product quality, review quality, decision quality, or time-to-evidence.
   - Avoid treating exposure/retrieval counts alone as success.

7. **Product connection**
   - The loop should end in a product: Ticket decision, implementation report, review, design doc, Skill update, or validated artifact.
   - Memory that never reaches a product is likely a graveyard.

## Boundary with current Yoi direction

- Knowledge as a separate record kind is being removed; this paper's reusable representations should map to Memory artifacts, Ticket artifacts, maintained docs, or Skills depending on authority.
- Workflow tracking is being removed; procedural guidance such as "generate alternatives" or "seek disconfirming evidence" should live in Skills / role prompts and be enforced by typed tools where authority is needed.
- Workspace backend should eventually be the authority for task-bound shoebox / evidence artifacts when Memory moves from local compatibility storage to control-plane records.
