Scenarios As A Tool For Collaborative Envisioning: Using The Case of New Sensor Technologies for Military Urban Operations

This paper describes the use of a collaborative envisioning tool to combine the goals of disparate communities concerning the role of new sensor technologies being deployed in Military Operations in Urban Terrain (MOUT). To do this, Cognitive Engineering intersects with the sensor development and military operations communities. Through the use of scenario-based design and the Topic Landscape tool, generic patterns provide seeds that help envision realistic future states of MOUT which are expressed in a narrative. These patterns provide insight on two levels: On one level they describe complexities inherent to all cognitive work, while on another level they provide insight about what makes MOUT difficult. The Topic Landscape is a collaborative tool that organizes information from a Cognitive Task Analysis of MOUT in many forms (text, graphics, video, etc.) from many contributors. Our use of scenario-based design turns scenarios from a validation tool to an effective envisioning tool.