Compare methods

	Information Horizons Mapping	Critical Incident Technique in Information Behavior
Field	Library Information Science	Library Information Science
Family	Process / pipeline	Process / pipeline
Year of origin	2001	1954
Originator	Diane H. Sonnenwald (with Barbara Wildemuth & Glenn Harmon)	John C. Flanagan (technique); applied to information behavior in LIS
Type	Elicitation method using participant-drawn maps of information sources within a context	Incident-based qualitative technique for studying effective and ineffective behavior
Seminal source	Sonnenwald, D. H., Wildemuth, B. M., & Harmon, G. L. (2001). A research method to investigate information seeking using the concept of information horizons: An example from a study of lower socio-economic students' information seeking behavior. The New Review of Information Behaviour Research, 2, 65-86.	Flanagan, J. C. (1954). The critical incident technique. Psychological Bulletin, 51(4), 327-358.
Aliases	Information Horizon Maps, Sonnenwald Information Horizons, Information Source Horizon Method, Horizon Mapping Interview	CIT in Information Behavior, Critical Incident Technique (LIS), Incident-Based Information Behavior Study, Flanagan CIT for Information Seeking
Related	3	3
Summary	Information Horizons Mapping is a research method developed by Diane Sonnenwald and colleagues, formalized in their 2001 paper in The New Review of Information Behaviour Research, for studying how people seek information within a specific context. Grounded in Sonnenwald's theory of information horizons — the idea that, in any given situation, an individual perceives a 'horizon' of information resources (people, documents, tools, systems) that they may consult — the method asks participants to draw a map of those sources for a particular information need and to explain it. By analyzing which sources appear, how close or central they are placed, how they relate to one another, and why some are included or excluded, researchers gain a situated, participant-centered picture of information-seeking behaviour that goes beyond simple source-use surveys.	The Critical Incident Technique (CIT), set out by John Flanagan in his 1954 Psychological Bulletin article, is a flexible set of procedures for collecting first-hand accounts of specific, observable incidents that were especially helpful or unhelpful in achieving some aim, and content-analyzing them to understand effective and ineffective behaviour. In library and information science it has become a widely used method for studying information seeking and use: instead of asking people in the abstract how they look for information, researchers ask them to recount concrete recent episodes — a time they urgently needed information, succeeded or failed to find it, encountered a barrier, or used a source to good or ill effect. Analyzing many such incidents yields grounded categories of information needs, behaviours, barriers and source roles. A 2025 Libri review documents the technique's broad application across LIS information-behaviour research.