(Illustrated above) A scientist exports a set of clinical data from her new analysis application so that she can import it into her old analysis tool, which includes some different visualizations. Depending on what she discovers in the older tool, she will likely import a subset of the clinical data back into her new, primary tool for further examination.

A financial trader, who wants to better understand the potential long term value of a large trade offer, exports the offer’s data into a format that he can then easily uploaded into his preferred market information tool.

An architect needs to post some plans on an extranet website for her clients to view. Since these clients do not have the specialized software applications that her studio uses, she instructs her building modeling application to export the selected plans as web pages.

Which computing tools do targeted individuals primarily use, given the larger constellation of technologies that are available to them?

What role do each of these tools play within your team’s targeted tasks and larger activities?

How do knowledge workers currently coordinate their various onscreen applications to accomplish their goals in different scenarios?

Which interoperations frequently result from actively and sequentially moving data between computing tools?

What breakdowns and errors can occur in these interoperations? Could these problems represent potential opportunities for your product?

Where might your team’s sketched strategic directions suggest “open” and networked approaches to other technologies in targeted workers’ environments? Where might they suggest “closed” approaches?

What market trends and technological realities might your team consider while envisioning possibilities for the directed movement of data between certain computing tools?

What attitudes and expectations do targeted individuals and organizations have regarding exporting and importing as a means of bridging their own assemblies of various tools and systems?

Which collections of interaction objects in your application concepts might targeted users want to export? What data might they like to import?

What data formats could support directed, manual exchanges of content between computing tools? What open standards could allow workers to move data into forthcoming and future applications — some of which your team may not yet know about or be able to predict during your own product development process?

What flexibilities could allow workers to have desirable levels of control over the content that is moved into and out of your application concepts?

What vulnerabilities and security problems might be created by allowing the import of “outside” data? What functionality responses could mitigate these risks?

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?