The role of the user in information fusion has gained increasing attention during the last years. However, looking at the research performed within the community it remains difficult to acquire a good understanding of the role of users, especially in terms of the information fusion system development process. To address this, a questionnaire was distributed during FUSION 2009 conference which aimed to explore these issues. Here, we present an initial analysis of the responses obtained. A consensus was found regarding how users have been incorporated in the development process. Specifically, they are seen as part of the concept generation phase, the requirement gathering phase or the evaluation phase rather than of the design phase. Also, the typical activities performed with users were found to be interviews and using users as advisers. However, results from the questionnaire also indicated that a consensus regarding what information is needed from users for automating a manual information fusion process is still lacking. The reasons for, and implications of this lack are discussed in the light of current research.
[CD-ROM]