Ideation as an Intellectual Information Acquisition and Use Context: Investigating Game Designers' Information‐Based Ideation Behavior

Human Information Behavior (HIB) research commonly examines behavior in the context of why information is acquired and how it will be used, but usually at the level of the work or everyday‐life tasks the information will support. HIB has not been examined in detail at the broader contextual level of intellectual purpose (that is, the higher‐order conceptual tasks the information was acquired to support). Examination at this level can enhance holistic understanding of HIB as a “means to an intellectual end” and inform the design of digital information environments that support information interaction for specific intellectual purposes. We investigate information‐based ideation (IBI) as a specific intellectual information acquisition and use context by conducting Critical Incident‐style interviews with 10 game designers, focusing on how they interact with information to generate and develop creative design ideas. Our findings give rise to a framework of their ideation‐focused HIB, which systems designers can leverage to reason about how best to support certain behaviors to drive design ideation. These findings emphasize the importance of intellectual purpose as a driver for acquisition and desired outcome of use.