Human Information Interaction―An Ecological Approach to Information Behavior

Human information interaction (HII) is an emerging area of study that investigateshow people interact with information; its subfield human information behavior (HIB) is aflourishing, active discipline. Yet despite their obvious relevance to the design of informationsystems, these research areas have had almost no impact on systems design. One issue may be thecontextual complexity of human interaction with information; another may be the difficulty intranslating real-life and unstructured HII complexity into formal, linear structures necessary forsystems design. In this book, Raya Fidel proposes a research approach that bridges the study ofhuman information interaction and the design of information systems: cognitive work analysis (CWA).Developed by Jens Rasmussen and his colleagues, CWA embraces complexity and provides a conceptualframework and analytical tools that can harness it to create design requirements. CWA offers anecological approach to design, analyzing the forces in the environment that shape human interactionwith information. Fidel reviews research in HIB, focusing on its contribution to systems design, andthen presents the CWA framework. She shows that CWA, with its ecological approach, can be used toovercome design challenges and lead to the development of effective systems. Researchers anddesigners who use CWA can increase the diversity of their analytical tools, providing them with analternative approach when they plan research and design projects. The CWA framework enables acollaboration between design and HII that can create information systems tailored to fit humanlives.

Raya Fidel is Professor Emerita in the University of Washington's Information School.