Eisenberg/Dirks 2008 p. 1
Taylor’s Value-Added Model: Still Relevant After All These Years
Mike Eisenberg, University of Washington
Lee Dirks, Microsoft Corporation
iConference
February 27-March 1, 2008
UCLA, Los Angeles, CA.
Introduction
This paper is an effort to reacquaint the information field with the work of one of its pioneers:
Robert S. Taylor and his Value-Added Model. Taylor’s Value-Added model (1986) was a broad
and ambitious effort to provide a unified framework for focusing on user needs and preferences
in evaluating and designing information systems. Although developed in the early 1980s—
before the wide-spread adoption of the microcomputer, and well-before the Internet and web–
based technologies that have so changed our lives—the model holds up remarkably well in terms
of explaining why various systems and systems attributes are useful and desirable or not.*
The Value-Added Model seeks to explain what users want, why they want them, and how
systems are able to meet (or not meet) those needs? “What do users want from information
systems that would enable them to perform better, however “better performance” is defined in
their context?” (Taylor p. 55) This paper updates Taylor’s work in light of dramatic
developments over the past 20 years and demonstrates how the model remains highly applicable
and valuable in both research and practical contexts across the interests of ischools.
Robert “Bob” Taylor is well-known for his contributions to library and information science. His
1968 paper, “Question Negotiation and the Reference Process,” (Taylor 1968) was one of the
first works to emphasize a user and information perspective. It remains one of the most cited
works in the history of library and information science.†
Taylor was also a visionary and pioneer
in the movement that led to the formation of information schools. In the mid-1970s, he assumed
the deanship at Syracuse, changed the name to the School of Information Studies and launched
their doctoral program and later the Master’s in Information Resources Management. Taylor
finished his career with his work on the Value-Added Model.
The goals of this paper are:
(1) To reintroduce the field to Taylor’s model.
(2) To suggest revisions to the model based on our experience and our interactions with
information professionals and graduate students.
(3) To demonstrate the widespread applicability of the modified model in current contexts to
better understanding users, information, systems, as well as the scope of the information
field.
(4) To offer recommendations for further work to develop and use the modified model.
*
We state this from personal experience in using Taylor’s model in formal presentations and graduate courses.
†
For example, a quick “Cited Reference Search in the ISI Web of Knowledge notes 255 citations for the 1968
College & Research Libraries paper.
Eisenberg/Dirks 2008 p. 2
The Taylor model (both the original and our proposed modified model) helps explain the
motivation of users, why certain systems and systems features perform so well in meeting user’s
needs or not (e.g., electronic spreadsheets, email, Google, Amazon, GUI, the Web, social
networks). Indeed, we posit that Taylor’s model can (and should) help to guide systems design,
user studies, marketing, and entrepreneurship in information management. This last area may be
its most compelling use. Entrepreneurs seeking to determine new products and services can
utilize this updated Taylor model as a check-list for improving, enhancing or developing new
and more compelling information products and services. In this paper, we offer the modified
Taylor value-added model as a means to better understand and explain successful
entrepreneurship and innovation.
The paper closes with an outline for further development, application, and research of the Taylor
model. The ischool community continues to seek ways of explaining to wider audiences what it
is that we do and why it is important. We believe that in re-acquainting the field with an
evolved/updated view of Taylor’s seminal work, a functional model will greatly facilitate this
important effort.
Taylor’s Value-Added Model
As noted above, the purpose of the Value-Added Model was to provide a framework for
considering information and systems from a user perspective. Underlying the model are the
three foundation elements of the information field—people, information, and technology:
1. People: The main focus is on the user. Systems exist to meet the information needs of
users. Additionally, people can be viewed as part of the system.
2. Information: There is a hierarchy of information - the “information spectrum.” As value
is added, we move up the spectrum from data to information to knowledge to action.
3. Systems: The purpose of an information system is to add value to better meet user needs.
Various systems’ processes add value in order to meet user needs.
Taylor emphasized that information systems are all about meeting the needs of users. Systems
and the underlying system processes, algorithms, and features exist to add value in order to meet
those needs. The Value-Added Model provides an organized framework for considering system
processes that add value in order to meet user needs. Taylor’s original Value Added framework
is presented in Figure 1 (Figure 4.2 from his book (Taylor, 1986 p. 50).
Eisenberg/Dirks 2008 p. 3
Figure 1: Taylor's Value‐Added Model. From Taylor 1986, Table 4.2. p. 50.
USER CRITERIA
OF CHOICE INTERFACE (Values Added) SYSTEM (Value-added Processes)
Ease of Use Browsing Alphabetizing
Formatting Highlighting important terms
Interfacing I (Mediation)
Interfacing II (Orientation)
Ordering
Physical Accessibility
Noise Reduction Access I (Item identification) Indexing
Access II (Subject description) Vocabulary control
Access III (Subject summary) Filtering
Linkage
Precision
Selectivity
Quality Accuracy Quality control
Comprehensiveness Editing
Currency Updating
Reliability Analyzing and comparing data
Validity
Adaptability Closeness to problem Provision of data manipulation capabilities
Flexibility Ranking output for relevance
Simplicity
Stimulatory
Time-Saving Response Speed Reduction of processing time
Cost-Saving Cost-saving Lower connect-time price
The first column on the left, “USER CRITERIA OF CHOICE” includes the broad categories of
criteria that are important to users in choosing a system or in evaluating how well a system
performs. These criteria are not absolute or fixed. Consider the different situations of a senior
NASA scientist and a 4th grade student. If both were using information systems to seek
information about climate change in the Arctic, the scientist might rate quality (with the
associated values of currency, accuracy, and reliability) as the top priority. For the 4th grader,
ease of use (with the value accessibility) or cost-saving might be as if not more important. The
relative priority of one or another criteria will depend on the person, situation, needs, setting,
and other user-centered aspects.
The second column, labeled “INTERFACE (Values Added)” includes the more specific values
that are added in order to best meet the USER CRITERIA OF CHOICE. For example, accuracy,
comprehensiveness, currency, reliability, and validity all can contribute to meeting the user
Eisenberg/Dirks 2008 p. 4
criterion “Quality.” The user criteria “Noise Reduction” relates to values of access, linkages,
precision, and selectivity.
Taylor’s last column is labeled, SYSTEM (Value-added processes). These are the processes,
features, and elements of the system that add to the related values identified in column 2 (which
in turn meet the user criteria of column 1). For example, the processes of quality control,
editing, updating, and analyzing may contribute to the values added of accuracy,
comprehensiveness, currency, reliability, and validity which then combine to address the user
criterion of Quality.
As pointed out in the introduction, this model was developed well before many of the
technological changes that have fundamentally altered human society, e.g., the personal
computer, cell phones, the Internet, the World Wide Web. However, the model is robust and
highly useful in explaining why these and other technological innovations are adopted and
valued by individuals and organizations.
Taylor explains the intricacies of the model and defines various terms in Chapter 4 of his 1986
book. He also provides a table of definitions of his identified Values-Added. Rather than
replicate Taylor’s elaboration here, this paper first presents suggested modifications that clarify
and expand the original Value-Added Model. This is followed by an abbreviated discussion of
user criteria, values added, and system processes within the context of a suggested modified
Value-Added Model.
Eisenberg-Dirks Modifications to Taylor’s Value-Added Model
The core of Taylor’s model is represented in Figure 4.2 from his 1986 book, reproduced above as
Figure 1. Our suggested modifications relate to this figure and are presented below in Figure 2.
While we have shared these modifications previously with various audiences through
presentations, this is the first recorded paper outlining our thoughts. Therefore, we see these as
formative or proposed modifications, and we expect that feedback from readers as well as from
our field-based investigations will help us to fashion a more complete and conclusive Modified
Value Added Model. In addition, we recognize the desirability of identifying, analyzing, and
comparing frameworks and models of fundamental concepts of information, systems, services,
and behaviors (e.g., relevance, credibility, use). We expect that this too will lead to adjustments
in specific elements included in the modified model. For example, we anticipate that advances
in the application of semantic technology could have major implications in the User Criteria of
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