Personalized versus Fixed Formats for Computer-Displayed Intelligence Messages

An experiment was performed to evaluate the usefulness of an option for users of an automated information system to construct their own preferred formats for receiving intelligence messages. It was hypothesized that such an option would enhance the acquisition and comprehension of intelligence data from each message. The results indicated that users who personalized the format arranged the message elements in an interpretable manner, and they took fewer notes during the subsequent paced presentation of messages in their individualized formats than users who received the messages in a reasonable, pre-experimentally fixed format. In addition, the users with personalized formats learned more from viewing the messages, independently of notes, than did the users with the fixed format. These data suggest that the personalization of the message format was useful and led to improved subjective organization of the intelligence data.