An information overload study (original) (raw)
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An information overload study: using design methods for understanding
2006
Information overload is not a clear-cut concept. To understand the concept we studied knowledge workers in their organizational context applying different design methods. These methods are increasingly used to inspire designers in designing technology solutions. However, for understanding ambiguous concepts they are less common. We compared critical incidents collection, cultural probing and storytelling with respect to their contribution to articulate the concept of information overload and to understand why respondents perceive information overload as problematic. At the same time, these insights will steer us towards practical guidelines and technological solutions bridging the gap between understanding human behaviour and (technological) support.
The Role of Contextual Clues In the Creation of Information Overload
papers.ssrn.com
There has been an explosion of new forms of communications media for interpersonal communication. There is anecdotal evidence of people suffering from 'information overload' as a result of these developments. This paper presents the results from, and analysis of, a case study of a perceived problem of information overload from e-mail in a large international organization: Watson Wyatt Partners. The research took two approaches to exploring the problem. The first was a survey of 1500 members of staff in the UK and Europe. This was aimed at collecting factual information. The second approach was to conduct follow up interviews with 19 people at two sites in the UK to explore some of the issues raised by the survey in greater depth. In the paper, we argue that for CMCs (Computer Mediated Communications) to be effective there is a need to establish a 'context' in which the message can be interpreted. In doing so, we will demonstrate that ignoring the degree of 'context' a media provides can adversely affect the users perceptions of that media.
Perspectives on information overload
Aslib proceedings, 1999
Information overload is by no means a new concept, but has come to prominence during the last decade. This paper reviews the nature and causes of overload, and considers possible solutions, both organisational and technical, and its relevance to the information professional.
2011
Coined by Gross (1964) and popularized by Toffler (1970) and Carr (2010), information overload represents an overwhelming bombardment of digital information that often substantiates underpinnings of continuous mental stress, anxiety, and distraction caused by a combination of queued info glut and incessant interruptions. But it was the advent of the World Wide Web in 1989 (Berners-Lee, 2000) and the onset of ubiquitous connectivity that turned information overload into a daunting and even debilitating phenomenon. Informationists have written extensively about the corporate manifestation of info glut in the workplace requiring agile mitigation strategies to retain knowledge workers and managers. And a new Pew Report (Dec. 2016) disclosed positive results that users are discovering their own ways to ameliorate the tensions of today’s information-saturated-world when organizations place high demands on employees. However, this research represents a pragmatic approach to understanding t...
Proceedings of the 4th Nordic conference on Human-computer interaction changing roles - NordiCHI '06, 2006
We studied information overload among senior managers in an industrial company. We used the critical incident collection technique to gather specific examples of information overload and coping strategies. We then used textual interpretation and the affinity diagram technique to interpret the interviews and to categorize our respondents, the critical incidents they described, and the coping strategies they mentioned. Our results show that the extent to which people suffer from information overload is closely related to the strategies they use to deal with it.
Academia Letters, 2021
Information overload (IO) is a set of objective and subjective difficulties, caused by the amount and complexity of information available, as well as by our inability to handle such situations. IO is by no means a myth, especially if we look at the history of recorded information that showed most of the time a perception of overload (Koltay, 2020). The excessive amount of information is not the sole cause of overload, but also its diversity, complexity, and novelty can be blamed(Bawden, & Robinson, 2020). Being overloaded by data seems to cause the same symptoms as IO, thus we can speak about data overload (Virkus, Mandrel, & Pals, 2018). Nonetheless, the similarities between information and data seem to outweigh the differences between them, therefore it is reasonable to name both phenomena information overload. Information overload has been referred to by using many names, including information overabundance, infobesity, info glut, data smog, information pollution, information fatigue, social media fatigue, social media overload, communication overload, and cognitive overload. The levels of overload There are two levels of IO. The macro level is related to the limits of physical storage and our processing capacities for managing information properly. This type of IO is amenable to technological solutions, thus may be mitigated by appropriately applying information architecture, interface design and user experience. However, their power in this regard is generally limited, because overload is often discovered only retrospectively and by indirect means (Davis, 2011). The micro level of IO is essentially a failure to filter out unnecessary, surplus information. Problems on this level are solved by making use of a broader repertoire of social, qualitative approaches that are not available in the case of technological solutions. The essence of the