The Human Context of Information Systems

In its past, IS research has focused on IT and the organizations that use IT. Human issues have been studied in HCI and the Human Factor Studies of MIS. Yet recently a new wave of attention has emerged to focus more explicitly on issues rising from the human context of information systems. Studies in this area are still scattered, but there seems to exist a common paradigmatic orientation in their basic assumptions of human beings and their interaction. The end-users of information systems should be seen holistically as physical, cognitive, emotional, and social beings, whose communication is rich and uses multiple media. These views add to and improve our understanding of information and knowledge effective in various kinds of human-oriented information systems.