Inaya

1. The Writer “I’ve tried so many times to organize information” Inaya Age: 42 Inayawent to school for literary analysis, but fell in love with biology. Since then, she’s become a prominent biology researcher in her field. Inaya has always been extremely devoted to her work, to the point where she’s likely to forget other commitments. She’s not great at separating her life from her work. She works at Stanford University, and has a Cocker Spaniel and a husband who sometimes gets frustrated with her because of her devotion to her research. Every time she stumbles upon something that might be relevant to a paper she’s writing, or is reminded by a conversations, she throws herself into her work for at least another hour. She spends a lot of time worrying about how to compile things she’s found, and has discovered that after a few days of ‘vacation’ time it takes her a while to get back on track just because she has to remember what the status of everything she was doing was before she stopped working. She wishes that there was an easier way to pick back up where she left off without having to store a running tally in her head. Inayais not great with the inner workings of computers, but she’s not bad by any means. She  uses Firefox and will learn new applications if she thinks that they will help with her work. She’s tried to use a few programs (like Zotero, which was recommended to her by a younger colleague), but she doesn’t usually seek them out on her own, or use them unless someone else recommends it to her, or she finds out about it in a biology or efficiency related blog that she reads. Stanford University Faculty in Biology Palo Alto, CA Tech-Savviness Reads for Expert Work Pleasure Novice Time spent on reading Shares Info with High No one Low Everyone Reading style Purposeful Aimless

2. The Studier “My notes are necessary to help me excel in class” Kevin Age: 19 Kevin is a college sophomore.  He excelled in high school but began to feel overwhelmed by college.  He began taking notes on his readings after struggling in the first semester.  He started with no formal method to how he takes notes but is beginning to develop his “system” of highlighting and margin notes during reading and reviewing all notes immediately after reading as well as before class and exams.  He wants a way to easily aggregate all of his notes for review without having to flip through the textbook. He tends to print out electronic readings so that he can easily take notes - he hasn’t adapted his system to computer-based documents.  He doesn’t spend too much time on the Internet because he sees it as a large time sink and fears wasting hours without accomplishing anything.  When he is on the computer, he carefully schedules his time and focuses on one task at a time.  He is fairly tech savvy, though he would not consider himself on the cutting edge.  He has extensively customized Chrome to allow him to quickly find information and minimize distractions. Cambridge, MA Student at Harvard UNiversity Tech-Savviness Reads for Expert Work Pleasure Novice Time spent on reading Shares Info with High No one Low Everyone Reading style Purposeful Aimless

3. The Communicator “I love sharing interesting articles with people they remind me of” Lily Age: 25 Lily is very active on Twitter and Facebook.  She often retweets things from friends/followers and comments on the statuses of her Facebook friends. She spends a lot of time perusing different websites on the Internet, but never spends too much time at any specific site. She isn’t shy from behind her computer, and is quick to let any of her friends know about her thoughts on anything and everything she reads online. In her work as a journalist, she often comes across fascinating tidbits of information that are just dying to be shared. Just because it isn’t something she can work into a formal news article doesn’t mean it isn’t something that people shouldn’t know about! Lily isn’t a computer expert by any means, but she knows how to use a web browser and a handful of other common applications. Because of this and her tight budget, she’s content with her netbook, and doesn’t want to spend a lot of money on more expensive computers or devices that she may not use to their full capabilities. She thought it was worth it, however, to buy an iPhone from which she can update her Twitter status and share pictures on the go. Journalist Portland, ME Tech-Savviness Reads for Expert Work Pleasure Novice Time spent on reading Shares Info with High No one Low Everyone Reading style Purposeful Aimless

4. The Self-Improver “I run across so many things on the internet. It’s hard to keep track of them all.” Derek Age: 37 Derek is a web-savvy individual who often finds himself perusing a number of news aggregators and choice blogs on UX in his spare time. As a graphic designer, he’s found that turning to the Internet is one of the easiest ways to get good tips about his field. However, he finds it easy to be overwhelmed by the sheer availability of information. He’s picked up the tendency for a short attention span of the modern age, and he tends to open tabs upon tabs of pages as he stumbles upon interesting new links and articles. Some of his favorite blogs offer excellent advice that he wants to be able to come back to -- for example, he’s been following self-improvement blogs like Zen Habits to work on his unfocused mind -- but he’s been struggling to come up with a good way to curate all of his favorite posts. He’s tried simple bookmarking and Delicious, but his list of cool interesting online things has grown such he has difficulty going back to what he has previously saved. Last week, he was over-scheduled and stressed out, but remembered that he had saved some really creative advice on re-focusing one’s mind a few months ago. However, his attempts to dig through his saved sources to find this particular article was frustrating and largely unsuccessful, much to his disappointment. Graphic Designer Chicago, IL Tech-Savviness Reads for Expert Work Pleasure Novice Time spent on reading Shares Info with High No one Low Everyone Reading style Purposeful Aimless