Information experience as an object of LIS research: a definition based on concept analysis

PurposeThis study aims to contribute to the clarification of core concepts in information experience research and to the consolidation of information experience as a distinctive research object.Design/methodology/approachThis study adopts a series of techniques from Wilson's toolkit of concept analysis.FindingsThis study finds that there exist tensions between different uses of the term information experience, giving rise to two fundamentally different conceptions of this particular human experience which this study names, respectively, the posterior conception and the a priori conception. It also finds that it is linguistically more useful, practically more consonant with LIS's concerns and unitarily more consistent to define information experience following the a priori conception. It postulates that information experience can be defined as a person's subjective, pre-reflective living through of his/her life as an information user in the information sphere of the lifeworld.Research limitations/implicationsIf adopted by future research, the concept proposed in this study is likely to push information experience research toward a more prominent phenomenological turn on the one hand, and a return to conventional LIS concerns on the other.Practical implicationsThe clarified concept may help user experience librarians and system designers to see the relevance of information experience research for their work more clearly.Originality/valueBy identifying, comparing and discussing different existing uses of information experience, and by suggesting a redefinition of the concept, this study has brought the core concepts of information experience research to a new level of clarity, and has verified information experience as a distinctive object for LIS research.