(Illustrated above) An architect likes a feature in her building modeling application that allows her to browse diverse information based on her current selection in the computing tool. For example, it may pull up similar details from previous projects within her studio or download reviews for a particular brand of building material from a leading industry website that she frequently visits.

A scientist has selected two online databases to use as supplemental reference information about genetic sequences in her clinical studies. She links these databases to her analysis application so that when she becomes interested in a specific genetic sequence during her data explorations, she can easily compare reference information on the sequence from two different sources that she trusts.

A financial trader knows that the market prices displayed in his trading application are an automatically blended average of three different pricing feeds, supplied by different three different vendors.

Which references and resources do targeted individuals know and respect? Are there standards, or are people more likely to turn to the breadth of the Web for potential options?

What value do certain information sources provide? How do workers apply their relevant content?

Do individuals currently use more than one source at the same time when seeking information? What continuities and contrasts do they look for across sources?

Which commonly used resources and data repositories might feasibly be linked to, or somehow incorporated within, your team’s computing tool?

Could your firm offer its own reference content as a value added feature? What impact might such a service have on your design strategy and brand?

What larger market, technology, and design trends could influence your team’s ideas about valuably making outside information available “inside” your application concepts?

When and where might certain types of integrated information provide value within the interactive flows of your sketched functionality concepts?

How might useful representational characteristics of existing information sources be preserved or even enhanced within the boundaries of your computing tool?

What novel interactive and representational concepts might your team envision to usefully distill outside information and clarify its relationships to associated content within your product? How might these displays valuably offload comparative efforts?

Do you have enough information to usefully answer these and other envisioning questions? What additional research, problem space models, and design concepting could valuably inform your team’s application envisioning efforts?