Contents 4
Sufficient consensus
Sensemaking describes how people gather, structure and represent information to build an understanding they can act on. It involves foraging, schema building and revision.
It is the actual task behind most non-trivial searches.
What the result pages leave out
These belong to the subject. People ask about them. They are missing from the agreed coverage.
- The shape of the whole. Individual pages answer individual questions. Very few offer the frame that makes the answers fit together.
- Contradiction. Sources disagree. Almost nobody names the disagreement and explains what it depends on.
- The decision the reader has to make. Material is organized by topic. Readers are organized by decision.
- Knowing when you are done. Nothing tells a searcher that they now have enough to act. They stop when they get tired.
- What has to be unlearned. Some subjects require dropping a common assumption first.
What people actually want to know
- How do these ten answers fit together?
- Why do two credible sources say opposite things?
- What do I need to know before I can decide?
- When do I know enough to stop?
The illusion of already knowing something stops thinking. A page that names what the reader still has to resolve does more than a page that sounds complete.
Last revised 2026-09-16.