[Sigia-l] data as information?

[Michael Albers]

How about this distinction between data and information from an example I 
used in the book _Design of Complex Information_


Stock price:  data or information

These were the prices for two stocks at about 3 PM today:  Dell $28.54 HP 
$27.28.

Is this data or information?  In most situations, just knowing the closing 
price would be data, because of various reasons:

·  The person may not know what Dell or HP are.

·  The person doesn’t have any interest in these particular stocks and may 
have no interest in stock investments.

·  Even if the person has Dell and HP stock, those values are data because 
they contain no past history. Only a select few, such as stock brokers and 
people interested in buying or selling soon, would know the recent stock 
prices. Are these prices higher or lower than yesterday and last week?

For this data to be information normally requires providing contextual 
situation with other data, such as:

·  Company information such as their earnings per share.

·  Previous history (are the values a rise or decline in share price).

·  Any recent announcements that can be predicted to cause a
    short-term spike or drop in share price.

Even if I were closely watching the share price with the intention of 
calling my broker to place an order when they reached a certain value, 
these values are still data. It’s all the past information which allows me 
to interpret these values that allows me to make that decision to call my 
broker or not. Of course, if the Dell and HP quotes were combined with 
other data elements, then they could give the user information.

When structuring information we must  understand the user so that we are 
not providing meaningless data when  we intend to provide information. For 
example, don’t just provide today’s closing values when the person needs 
past history. And don’t provide the entire New York Stock Exchange closing 
prices when all the person wants is HP and Dell. (Requiring a search based 
on ticker symbol is imposing an extra layer of high cognitive load which 
could be avoided in most situations.)


Mike Albers


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Dr. Michael J. Albers
Professional Writing Program
Department of English
University of Memphis
Memphis  TN  38152