Ensuring online information usability
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/eb045238 |
| Pages | 237-239 |
| Date | 01 April 1993 |
| Published date | 01 April 1993 |
| Author | Toby Chance |
| Subject Matter | Information & knowledge management,Library & information science |
Article
Ensuring online
information usability
Toby Chance
Mast Information
Technologies,
PO Box
1086,
Sunninghill
2157,
South Africa
Abstract: The debate around developing online
information systems has tended to focus on the technology
options. These include
hypertext,
image processing,
document management, storage, communications and
expert systems.
Little attention has
been
paid,
however, to the content of the
information to be put online. Without content that is
user-oriented,
in terms of its organisation and presentation,
an online information system is worthless. People will only
be lured away from paper if the online system is more
usable.
Various methods have been devised for improving usability
of online information. This paper will concentrate on one in
particular, known as Information
Mapping.
Information
Mapping is a research-based method for
analysing,
organising and visually presenting information. Developed
over 30 years by Dr Robert Horn while at Columbia and
Harvard Universities and later in commercial applications,
the method helps ensure that all
the
expenditure normally
associated
with
online systems is maximised for user
productivity.
The paper will illustrate the method by comparing mapped
with unmapped information, supported by empirical
research findings in a variety of case studies.
1.
Man's evolution
Every Age in man's evolution has associated with it tools in-
vented by man to make for a better life. In the Stone Age
stones were aplenty but for the first time man used them as
tools for hunting, cooking and
shelter.
The Industrial Age saw
the machine as the defining technology of human progress.
We are now moving into the Information Age. There has
always been information but now the imperative is to find
ways to use it to improve the quality of
life,
beat the competi-
tion, advance our knowledge and understanding and all the
other activities that drive man in his endless quest for discov-
ery and improvement.
Yet we are disappearing under a deluge of information in
which quantity has seemingly surpassed quality as the goal of
information producers. To paraphrase Churchill, never in the
field of human endeavour was so little known by so many
with so much. Time was when you wrote a memo and copied
it to perhaps one or two people with carbon paper and put
another copy on file. Now, with computers, faxes, photocopi-
ers,
electronic mail, networks, bulletin boards, modems and
all the other tools of the Information Age, you can write a
memo and copy it to thousands of people instantaneously.
Organisations are shrinking. Layers of workers at the bot-
tom end — those that do the work — are being replaced by
technology. The top end people — those that tell the others
what to do — will always remain small in number. Now the
middle layers are being thinned
out,
comprising people whose
main purpose is to communicate between the tellers and the
doers.
Organisations are now communicating directly with
customers. Information that used to be stored in people's
heads as experience is now being stored electronically,
shrinking the value chain by raising the knowledge and skill
requirements of those people left in the chain.
Cyberspace — 'a new universe, a parallel universe created
and sustained by the world's computers and communication
lines (Benedikt 1992) —
is
replacing headspace
as the
reposi-
tory of man's inherited knowledge. Although only five per-
cent of business and government information is in electronic
form (Horton 1990) this percentage is rapidly increasing and
much of what is left on paper hardly gets used anymore any-
way. 'Pushed by the information deluge and pulled by the lure
of more efficient storage and
retrieval,
the
trend
is
irreversibly
toward online documentation' (Horton 1990).
2.
Technologies to watch
Horton highlights five key technologies that will drive the
trend towards putting information online.
• High capacity storage media. These include magnetic
and optical storage media. 'Optical disc jukeboxes put
dozens of gigabytes online. Electron Erosion Systems
promise storage densities 1000 times greater' (Horton
1990).
• High speed communication networks. Technologies
like Integrated Services Digital Network (ISDN) and
Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM) will enable us to
send vast chunks of information instantaneously to
anyone on the network.
• Ultra high-resolution displays. These will be as easy to
The Electronic Library, Vol.
11,
No. 4/5, August/October 1993 237
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