In our lives we constantly deal with information. I've talked about what people try to do with it, but there are limits to both our physical and mental activities. To make everything easier we invent tools. There are many different kinds of tools to work with information, yet there're a lot of common aspects to their usage and design.
All tools help us reach our goals, help us with our pain, etc. Many people have different definition of what tools (programs) should do, but in the end it's all the same. A tool must solve more problems than it creates or there's no point in using it (although, sometimes it's hard to see all problems that are going to be created, before some of the existing ones are solved). As you can see from my previous post I assume people have two major goals when managing information, to understand it and to share it.
Every information management tool does only one thing. It stores information and shows it back to us. There can perform a lot of different operations, but they simply extend our abilities, allowing us to work with more information simultaneously, more accurately and to visualize it differently.
I'm mostly focusing on computer-based tools, but there are other kinds, such as writing/drawing on a physical medium (i.e. paper and pen). Paper is very flexible, but not as scalable as computers and doesn't support data manipulation well. It's easy to put just about any type of information on paper: text, pictures, diagrams, numbers, graphs, etc. and more importantly it's easy to combine different information. However, it's hard to change it once it's written down. In addition capturing, organizing (combining sheets of paper) or finding what you need becomes harder and harder as the ammount of information increases.
Before we can use any tool, we need to transfer information into it. We often understand it better in the process because in many cases we organize information as we input it. For example, when we talk to somebody about a problem we are trying to solve, we actively analyze it. As a result we can find solution without other person saying anything because we finally organized information in a pattern we came to recognize.
I want to classify information management tools by how general or strong-typed they are. On one end of the spectrum there's pen and paper (allowing us to enter information in a free form without limitations). Less extreme examples of open tools are Word and Excel. They work with specific structure of the information (linear text or tables), but the actual structure is quite open. It's possible to store a lot of different information in Word, ranging from books and articles to notes and to-do list. Excel support for tables is suited for a lot of uses.
On the opposite end of the spectrum there are tools work strictly with specific information (strong-typed tools). For example Outlook can be use to manage tasks. Each task has a strict structure and tasks are organized in a list. Most of the tools fall somewhere in-between, and there are good and bad aspects to being more open or more strong-typed.
Open tools are easier to adopt for different information scenarios. It's possible to analyze mathematical data, to work with finances and to manage a small project with Excel. Even though the tool is open, it's usually easier to work with information organized in a strict structure. The beauty of open tools is that they allow the user to invent a simple system to simulate strict-type tool (often without realizing they are doing it) and so well-designed open tools are very popular. Good tool will actually provide features to help simulate such strict-typeness (through templates, custom attributes, and so on).
There are two problems however: scalability and potential lack of features. It becomes harder to implement features for tools that support larger variety of information. For example operations to work with plain text will be simpler than operations to work with rich formated text.
Scalability problems appear because users try to use open tools not designed to handle such scenarios. Excel might be suitable when managing small project, but it becomes harder to use when the scope of the project grows. Big chunks of information need to be organized and grouped for the human to be able to comprehend it. We can work with 10-20 items in a list, but working with 200, or a 1000 items in a list would be very hard. Designing and implementing support to organize information of arbitrary type and structure is hard. If it's not done right (assuming it's even possible) user will be forced to adjust to how the program works, and it loses its openness.
Strict-type tools work much better than open tools with information that matches their design. For example, a project management application would have more potential than Excel or Word when used to manage projects, from capturing information (tasks) to analyzing and tracking progress. It could also support different information structures (such as arranging tasks in a tree), users, and so on, and provide more operations, such as grouping progress by iterations, tracking time, filtering. When information fits well with the tool it can be very easy to use, but even a small deviation makes it harder. The tool imposes on the user what information it can work with and if its design doesn't exactly fit the need there's a problem. We try to adjust it for what we need, but it's most likely not as flexible as an open tool (and it wasn't designed to be as flexible). For example if project management tool doesn't support time estimation, and we need it, we can add our estimation in parenthesis after the task title.
Strong type tool is easier to use and provides more options, when information fits it and when the tool is designed for the tasks you want to perform. Open tools are more flexible. They allow you to invent your own way to simulate strict types and structure information. When available I prefer strong-type tools, they are easier to use and don't force me to invent something. In the best cases it fits me, my information and my problems like a glove. If it doesn't, I fall back to open tools (like Word and Excel).
I was going to talk about design, what is done right and what can be improved in the existing tools, but I felt it was important to think about what kind of tools are out there first. Wow, this post is probably one of the longest I've ever written and it took me many hours to think about all this and write it out. I really hope some good will come out of this series on information management. Anyway, I'm planning to address tools design in the next post.