Information need and use studies
Elizabeth Thompson Hewins · Annual Review of Information Science and Technology · 1990
Elizabeth T. Hewins concentrates on the need and use studies of the literature in: medical informatics, business, public administration and marketing research, and library and information science. She looks at information-provision mechanisms, user modeling, information value, cognitive processes and interface designs as they relate to use studies. She concludes that group needs and uses should be studied so that systems can be designed to serve the members of the group. She finds that new paradigms and approaches are user centered rather than system centered. Hewins suggests that research must become more interdisciplinary than in the past, that research on user behavior should drive research on systems and interfaces to a greater degree than inthe past, and that the two areas should ultimately be linked to user behavior