Turning Information into Action

What do people actually do with information once they have it? If a user has run a report with the information they required how do they  use it and take action on it? For example, if you review a report of your companies account balances and find an error that shows an overstatement of revenue in a certain account, what would you do with the information? Probably one of the following actions:

1.) You could send the same information to someone else so that they can take action on it.  You can send it via email, print it out and carry it over to them personally, or call the person on the phone and relay the information verbally.

2.) You could drop everything you are currently doing and log into the accounting system and figure out what you need to do to make any changes.

3.) You might schedule time to work on the problem at a future date.

4.) You could question the validity of the information and review additional information in order to validate
why the number is what it is.

5.) You could ignore the information and take no action.

6.) Store the information for future reference.

Broadly here are the actions that one might take:

1.) Delegate

2.) Fix

3.) Schedule

4.) Analyze

5.) Ignore

6.) Store

So one of the interesting things to think about is how the information tools that you use enable or discourage those different types of actions. Different types of users are going to take different actions based on their role within an organization. Making it easy for people to act on information is critical to success in setting up any information architecture.