What Are The Characteristics Of Effective Information?

Following are the characteristics of effective information:

• Information is something that is perceived:
         Stated another way, information refers to data that have been processed by the human mind and therefore have been given some type of meaning. Perceptual and personality factors influence the manner in which data are encoded, processed, and stored. Thus, two people looking at the same set of data often focus on and perceive different things, perhaps reaching different conclusions.

• Information reduces uncertainty about a situation:
         People tend to seek out information because certain facts may help to minimize the risk of making a wrong decision and increase the likelihood of making the right one.

• The human mind processes information in chunks, taken from short-term memory:
         Because people usually find it easier to draw from short-term rather than long-term or external memory when they are initiating an action, information is likely to have the greatest influence when key data are readily accessible in a person's short-term memory.

• The rate at which people can process data into information is finite:
         If  too many data are presented within a certain time frame, the result is information overload. Since individuals can typically only process 7+2 chunks of data at one time, material such as reports, graphs, and tables should be formatted so that they do not overwhelm decision makers with more information than can easily understood.