Indeed information users, and more specifically the information behaviour of users, has been a major area of research over the past six decades.
Wilson comments that "apart from information retrieval there is virtually no other area of information science that has occasioned as much research effort and writing as "user studies".
Within user studies the investigation of formation needs" has been the subject of much debate and no little confusion.
The multiple notion and uses of the term 'information' is often the main cause of confusion; as Wilson points out, "researchers sometimes fail to distinguish between one sense and another, or simply leave the reader to discover which sense is meant by reading the paper or report.