|
|
|
|
Defining Needs
Decisions are required to be taken in day to day life. No single
task in our life can be done without decision
making. For every assignment we undertake, there has to be a
process of making choices. Whenever we
are faced with choices, there is an inevitable need of selecting
one particular course of action. Any task
can be done in various ways, but doing it simultaneously through
all possible alternatives is virtually
impossible. This necessitates making a reasonable choice from
all the options available.
An example can be taken for a person who wants to go to
Islamabad. He can look at following options.
•
Use any of the local bus
service available
•
Go by train
•
Travel by air
As you can see, the decision to be made in this situation is
faced with the availability of a set of combination
of alternatives.
•
Every decision we take
in daily life requires some sort of information about the alternatives
available. For
instance, in the above example certain factors need to be
considered before taking a decision.
•
How urgent it is to
reach to Islamabad
•
How much time is
available to accommodate travelling, since each mode of travelling will take
different time to reach at the same destination?
•
Whether bookings are
available for the desired day and time.
•
Is there any possibility
of cancellation of booking or flight or bus service.
•
Which bus service or
airline to chose from, since various airlines and bus services are having
travelling facilities to Islamabad.
•
Without the availability
of relevant information, we may take a decision which is wrong or not to our
benefit. For instance if the person does not have complete
knowledge of facts he might not be able to
take the right decision.
•
Similar is the case with
business. Businesses are run by organizations which are in-fact a group of
people.
As individuals have choices to choose from, organizations also
face various alternatives in day to day
operations, Decisions are made by individuals from the
management.
1.1 Need for information
Information is required in day to day decision making. Without
the availability of right quantity of
information at the right time, the process of decision making is
highly affected. For this reason various
sources of information are used to extract information. Some of
these are:
o
Newspapers
o
Internet
o
Marketing Brochures
o
Friends & Relatives
1.2 Sources of Information
Sources of information are generally categorized as primary,
secondary or tertiary depending on their
originality and their proximity to the source or origin. For
example, initially, findings might be
communicated informally by email and then presented at meetings
before being formally published as a
2
primary source. Once published, they will then be indexed in a
bibliographic database, and repackaged
and commented upon by others in secondary sources.
The designations of primary, secondary and tertiary differ
between disciplines or subjects, particularly
between what can generally be defined as the sciences and the
humanities. For example,
•
The historian’s primary
sources are the poems, stories, and films of the era under study.
•
The research scientist's
primary sources are the results of laboratory tests and the medical records
of patients treated with the drug.
Written information can be divided into several types.
•
Primary Sources
•
Secondary Sources
•
Tertiary Sources
1.3 Primary Sources
Some definitions of primary sources:
1.
Primary sources are
original materials on which other research is based
2.
They are usually the
first formal appearance of results in the print or electronic literature (for
example, the first publication of the results of scientific
investigations is a primary source.)
3.
They present
information in its original form, neither interpreted nor condensed nor
evaluated
by other writers.
4.
They are from the time
period (for example, something written close to when the event
actually occurred.
5.
Primary sources present
original thinking and report on discoveries or share new information.
Some examples of primary sources:
1.
Scientific journal
articles reporting experimental research results
2.
Proceedings of
Meetings, Conferences.
3.
Technical reports
4.
Dissertations or theses
(may also be secondary)
5.
Patents
6.
Sets of data, such as
census statistics
7.
Works of literature
(such as poems and fiction)
8.
Diaries
9.
Autobiographies
10.
Interviews, surveys
and fieldwork
11.
Letters and
correspondence
12.
Speeches
13.
Newspaper articles
(may also be secondary)
14.
Government documents
15.
Photographs and works
of art
16.
Original documents
(such as birth certificate or trial transcripts)
17.
Internet
communications on email, and newsgroups
1.4 Secondary Sources
Secondary sources are less easily defined than primary sources.
What some define as a secondary source,
others define as a tertiary source. Nor is it always easy to
distinguish primary from secondary sources.
For example,
•
A newspaper article is a
primary source if it reports events, but a secondary source if it
analyses and comments on those events.
3
•
In science, secondary
sources are those which simplify the process of finding and evaluating
the primary literature. They tend to be works which repackage,
reorganize, reinterpret,
summarize, index or otherwise "add value" to the new information
reported in the primary
literature.
Some Definitions of Secondary Sources:
1.
Describe, interpret,
analyze and evaluate the primary sources
2.
Comment on and discuss
the evidence provided by primary sources
3.
Are works which are
written after the fact with the benefit of hindsight?
Some examples of secondary sources:
1.
bibliographies (may
also be tertiary)
2.
biographical works
3.
commentaries
4.
dictionaries and
encyclopedias (may also be tertiary)
5.
dissertations or theses
(more usually primary)
6.
handbooks and data
compilations (may also be tertiary)
7.
history
8.
indexing and
abstracting tools used to locate primary & secondary sources (may also be
tertiary)
9.
journal articles,
particularly in disciplines other than science (may also be primary)
10.
newspaper and popular
magazine articles (may also be primary)
11.
review articles and
literature reviews
12.
(may also be
tertiary)
1.5 Tertiary Sources
This is the most problematic category of all.
Some Definitions of Tertiary Sources:
1.
Works which list
primary and secondary resources in a specific subject area
2.
Materials in which the
information from secondary sources has been "digested" -
reformatted and condensed, to put it into a convenient,
easy-to-read form.
3.
Sources which are once
removed in time from secondary sources
Some examples of tertiary sources:
1.
Almanacs and fact books
2.
Bibliographies (may
also be secondary)
3.
Chronologies
4.
Dictionaries and
encyclopedias (may also be secondary)
5.
Directories
6.
Guidebooks, manuals etc
7.
Handbooks and data
compilations (may also be secondary)
8.
Indexing and
abstracting tools used to locate primary & secondary sources (may also be
secondary)
9.
(may also be
secondary)
1.6 Changing Needs
When needs change, requirements for information change.
Information needs of users are changing as a
result of changes in the availability of information content in
electronic form. Changing needs of the users
determine the nature of the physical form in which information
content is currently being made available
for users’ access and use in electronic information
environments.
Information needs:
4
•
Each user has a
different type of information need depending on what he's trying to find and why
he's trying to find it. If we can determine the most common
information needs a site's users have,
we can select the few best architectural components to address
those information needs.
•
For example, if a user
is designing a staff directory, we can assume that most users are searching for
items they already have information about. The user already
knows exactly what he's looking for, he
has the terms necessary to articulate that need, and he knows
that the staff directory exists and that
it's the right place to look. This type of information need
would be best served by employing a
search system. So resources should be invested in developing and
maintaining a comprehensive
search system.
•
Another example: the
site's users are often new or infrequent visitors. And perhaps the site's
content scope is changing frequently. So the information
architecture probably should be very good
at supporting orientation. If that's the case, invest in a table
of contents or some other IA
component that's effective at orienting users and communicating
what content is contained in the
site. |
|
|
|
|
|
|