We live in an information age but information is only useful when it is interpreted by people
and applied in the context of their goals and activities. The volume of information to which
people have access is growing at an incredible rate vastly outstripping people's ability to
assimilate and manage it. In order to design technologies that better support information work
it is necessary to better understand the details of that work. In this lecture we review the
situations (physical social and temporal) in which people interact with information. We also
discuss how people interact with information in terms of an information journey in which
people iteratively do the following: recognise a need for information find information
interpret and evaluate that information in the context of their goals and use the
interpretation to support their broader activities. People's information needs may be explicit
and clearly articulated but conversely may be tacit exploratory and evolving. Widely used
tools supporting information access such as searching on the Web and in digital libraries
support clearly defined information requirements well but they provide limited support for
other information needs. Most other stages of the information journey are poorly supported at
present. Novel design solutions are unlikely to be purely digital but to exploit the rich
variety of information resources digital physical and social that are available. Theories of
information interaction and sensemaking can highlight new design possibilities that augment
human capabilities. We review relevant theories and findings for understanding information
behaviours and we review methods for evaluating information working tools to both assess
existing tools and identify requirements for the future. Table of Contents: Introduction:
Pervasive Information Interactions Background: Information Interaction at the Crossroads of
Research Traditions The Situations: Physical Social and Temporal The Behaviors:
Understanding the Information Journey The Technologies: Supporting the Information Journey
Studying User Behaviors and Needs for Information Interaction Looking to the Future Further
Reading
