In this era of information overload, Ray Henry, Ph.D., of Cleveland State University is studying how information technologies affect how we find and use information.

“We have access to more information from more sources than ever before,” said Dr. Henry, associate professor in the Department of Computer and Information Science in CSU’s Monte Ahuja College of Business.

He and his colleagues are examining factors that influence our perceptions of the accessibility and quality of different information sources, and how they affect how likely we are to choose a particular source.

“People have a variety of information sources available to them,” Dr. Henry said. “They can use interpersonal sources such as friends or co-workers, or they can go to sources such as knowledge-bases or the internet.”

He also is working with CSU doctoral students to explore how information presentation affects decision-making outcomes. They’re using eye-tracking technology to explore how changes in the ways that information is presented affect how difficult that information is to process, for different types of tasks.

These projects are funded by the CSU Office of Research.

“Our work at Cleveland State University is important because it helps us to better understand the ways that people find and use information, so we can create systems, both social and technical, that make information more accessible and more usable,” Dr. Henry said.

For more on his work, check out the CSU Office of Research’s Featured Researcher video series.