The Laws of Information Systems

Chandra S. Amaravadi
Abstract
Routine scientific activity consists of observing a phenomenon of interest, theorizing about it and carrying
out tests. Laws are definite and interesting relationships among variables that are by-products of this
activity. They are the basis for knowledge in a discipline and serve to give it its identity. Laws are
common in scientific disciplines such as Mathematics and Chemistry. Applied fields such as engineering
are characterized more by the application of knowledge while humanistic disciplines such as
management tend to be characterized by paradigms or complex relationships between amorphous
variables. Information systems is an amalgamated discipline that shares some characteristics with
sociology, engineering as well as with scientific disciplines. To the extent that it is a science, we have a
number of laws and theories; to the extent that it is engineering and sociology, we have a number of
paradigms and principles. In this paper, a number of laws, paradigms and principles concerning
information systems and its development are discussed. The subject of these range from transaction
volumes to the nature of good systems. They invite further elaboration, testing, analysis and refutation.
Keywords: Laws of Information Systems, Laws in Social Sciences, Technology Laws, Software Design
Principles, Software Development Principles, Information System Paradigms, Information Systems
Philosophy

Theories, Laws and Paradigms

Knowledge in a scientific discipline, is generated in
a cyclical process. Scientists study a phenomenon
of interest according to the paradigm or worldview
to which they have been exposed. They theorize
about the phenomenon in order to explain
interactions among variables causing it. The theory
leads to a set of propositions or hypotheses, which
are then tested. Anomalies result when a theory
fails to explain some of the phenomena. In this
case, the theory is modified. Major changes to the
theory or new theories result in new paradigms,
which repeats the process (Kuhn 1963). Laws are
definite and interesting relationships among
variables (Carnap 1966) are a by-product of the
progress of normal science. They result from the
verification of theories. Thus, explaining the
phenomenon of prismatic refraction1 could lead a
Chandra S. Amaravadi
Department of Information Management and
Decision Sciences
College of Business and Technology
Western Illinois University
Macomb, IL 61455

scientist to postulate the wave theory of light i.e.

different waves traveling at different velocities
bend when passing through a denser substance.
This could further lead to the hypothesis of
interference of wave patterns. Testing this would
confirm the wave theory of light and would lead
to laws concerning the velocity of light. However,
attempting to explain photo electricity2 from the
wave paradigm results in a major anomaly, that of
explaining the release of electrons. This could
result in a paradigm shift i.e. quantum physics
(Kuhn, ibid).
Laws are found in abundance in the natural
sciences as well as in more abstract disciplines such
as mathematics.
They are described in the
textbooks of the discipline and have certain
characteristics. First, relationships are formal and
are often described mathematically. The identity:
E = nhf

where
E is the energy of the photon,
n is an integer (1,2..)
h is Plancks constant, and
f is the frequency.

explains the energy radiation exhibited by a black

body at different temperatures and wavelengths.
This is the law of black body radiation (Alcyone
2004). A second characteristic of laws is that no
one law is universal, each is valid only under
certain conditions (Carnap 1966). Newtons laws
of motion for instance, apply to most earthly
bodies, but do not apply to very large masses or to
subatomic particles (Dirac 1982). Thirdly, laws
serve to predict a phenomenon. Avogadros
hypothesis for instance, predicts that equal volumes
of gases under identical pressure and temperature
conditions will contain equal number of molecules
(Alcyone 2004). Theories on the other hand are
explanative. The particle theory of light explains
the phenomenon of photo electricity. Light
particles impacting on a photoelectric material
displace electrons according to the energy of
emission. One final characteristic of laws is that
they are not usually obvious. For example, the
statement that all doves are white, assuming it were
true, would not be designated as a law. On the
other hand it is not obvious that the number of
electrons in an atom of an element is equal to its
atomic number (ibid).
Laws in a discipline fulfill a very important role.
They give a field its identity. In fact the majority
of knowledge in a field is derived from laws and
their applications. Applications of the laws will be
regarded as principles, although these can be
derived experientially as well.
Engineering
mechanics for instance, involves applying
Newtons laws of motions to physical structures
such as bridges and buildings (Timoshenko and
Young 1995). Laws and paradigms specify rules
of the game to new entrants to the field and pose
challenges to innovative thinkers.
Information system is an amalgam of disciplines
and therefore has characteristics of sociology,
science and engineering combined (Dubin 1978,
Habermas 1984, Hirscheim and Klein 1994,
Yourdon and Constantine 1979). To the extent
that it is a science, we have a number of laws and
theories. Moores law (Moore 1965) and the theory
of transaction costs (Coase 1937) are prime
examples of these3. To the extent that it is
130

engineering, we can expect that knowledge will be

based on application of theory. The idea of
functional decomposition (Yourdon and
Constantine 1979) for example, can be traced to
application of systems theory. To the extent that
the IS discipline resembles sociology, we can
expect paradigms and imprecise relationships. The
Technology Acceptance Model (Davis 1989) and
the information systems Implementation Success
(IS) Model (Delone and McLean 1992) are
examples of these. The Implementation Success
Model, for example predicts that implementation
success is a function of six factors including
system quality, information quality, usage and
satisfaction, individual and organizational impacts.
Described below are a set of laws, theories and
principles in the information systems discipline
that are a result of observation and experience on
the part of the author. Many are commonly
recognized phenomenon that have not been
formally codified as laws.

I. The Law of Transaction Volumes

The volume of transactions will increase with the
stage of development of a society.
This is a variation on Kardashevs law. The
Russian physicist Nikolai Kardeshev postulated
that the stage of advancement of a civilization was
characterized by its total energy consumption/
energy output. A type I civilization produces 1016
watts, a type II, 1026 and a type III, 1036 watts
(Kardashev 1964). Thus the more advanced the
civilization, the greater the energy consumption.
The stage of development of society can similarly
be characterized in terms of the volume of
transactions; the more developed the society, the
greater the number of goods and services
produced/consumed and therefore the greater the
number of exchanges occurring. We are witnessing
this in the case of credit cards, debit cards and online transactions. Worldwide electronic and credit
transactions totaled $213 billion in 2000 and are
expected to be around $393 billion in the year 2010
(EpayNews.com 2004) (Please refer to Figure
1).Visa alone processed 43 billion transactions
world wide, last year (Visa International 2004).
Journal of Management Research

The growing use of the web compounds this

phenomenon (Holly 1996) because each web
transaction generates 7-8 internal transactions in
the form of credit, inventory, accounting and
shipping transactions (Stair and Reynolds 2003).

or society, will always exceed its information

processing capabilities.

III. The Law of Infinite Processing Needs

IV. The Law of Technological Evolution

The information processing needs of an organization

Technology seeks the most efficient form, unless

Transaction Volumes
(Billions)

A corollary of the law of transaction volumes is

that the symbol systems by which transactions are
encoded will grow more complex as a society
advances. A developed society will have greater
communication needs and will therefore require
more symbols to communicate. We have already
witnessed this in the case of transition from ASCII
to Unicode. ASCII was originally a seven-bit
character code enhanced to encode 256 characters.
Since this did not cover characters in other
languages and certain special symbols, Unicode
was introduced. Unicode has three forms of
encoding: byte, word and double word. In
its fullest form, it is capable of encoding 1,065,000
different characters (Unicode 2004). Though these
seem sufficient for the present, as society develops
further, its technologies and commerce may test the
million-character limit again (Amaravadi 2003).

Organizations will always have more information

than they can process, so the processing needs will
always exceed the processing capabilities. The
information processing needs of an organization
or a social system are almost infinite and demand
is elastic. This has been witnessed at a very basic
level in the case of personal computers and
hardware. No matter how fast the hardware,
software
has
traditionally
expanded
in
functionality5 to exploit the hardware (Mardesich
1999). This phenomenon is also evidenced in the
case of more mundane physical systems such as
freeways. The more the freeways, the greater the
traffic. When basic processing needs are met, one
or all of these events occur to devour the excess
capacity: the volume of information processed
increases, the nature of the application changes, the
usage of applications increases, or higher order
needs in the form of processing data relationships
or simulations with the data arise. As an example,
in spite of technological improvements over the
last decade, Internet search engines have been
inundated both with more frequent requests as well
as with the volume of information searched. The
number of search requests for Google, the leading
search engine increased from 10 million to 200
million per day over the last four years (Taylor
2004). Another example is the emergence of data
mining amidst a hardware cornucopia and the need
of organizations to explore relationships among
millions of records. Associative rule induction, a
technique in data mining, involving only ten items
(milk, eggs,.. ) and a hundred grocery records
will require 100*10* 210 operations (Amaravadi
and Daneshgar 2003). The number of operations
increases exponentially with the number of items.
Whether or not the law continues to hold in the
long-term future remains a moot point, but our
need to process large volumes of information and
analyze increasingly complex relationships will
continue to drive the technology in the short term.

250
200
150
100
50

Europe

America
Asia

0
2000

2010
Years

Figure 1: Global Transaction Volume

II. The Law of Symbol Systems4

The symbol systems by which messages are encoded
grow more complex as a society evolves.

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December 2004

131

otherwise constrained.
This means that if a particular technology has
undesirable characteristics, the technology will
continue to evolve until the problems are worked
out. The most efficient form is the one with the
fewest limitations. Classical examples of these are
in relational databases, RAM memories, storage
media and programming languages. Relational
databases evolved from hierarchical databases
because of difficulties in organizing and accessing
information from the latter type systems. In the
case of storage media, the floppy disk has finally
given way to the zip disk due to constraints of size
and access speed (Powell 2001). Exceptions to the
law occur if there are other constraints on the
technology such as inertia. The Dvorak keyboard,
MAC and Unix operating systems are well-known
examples of technologies that were more efficient,
but were constrained by inertial forces (Dvorak and
Merrick 1936; Fallows 1993). The extent of these
inertial forces determines whether evolution will
take place or not.

V. The Law of Good Systems

A good system produces benefits that are
disproportionately high in comparison to the initial
investment.
Another way of stating this is that a good solution
produces many benefits. Information systems
form the plumbing of the organization and
frequently cross-functional boundaries. So a good
system produces multiplicative benefits, which
often exceed the initial investment. Examples of
successful systems6 such as SABRE, McKesson
and Walmart bear this out (Ciborra 1991). In the
physical world, the interstate highway system
(Ourdocuments 2004) was originally designed to
move personnel and materials during World War II,
but has produced tremendous, indirect, nonmilitary benefits during the post-war period.
Among these is the growth of the automobile, steel
and motel industries (Cox and Love 1996). A
corollary to this is that a bad system causes
problems that are out of proportion to its area of
operation. Poorly designed operating systems for

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instance, have made it difficult for programmers to

write applications and have spelled the doom for
many a vendor. For a long time, programmers had
to wrestle with the 64 K memory limit imposed by
DOS until this problem was finally overcome with
Windows (Fallows 1993).

VI. The Law of Right Design

Every software that involves users has a right
design.
The observation that some software are very
intuitive and some are exactly the opposite,
suggests that every software has a right design
which is a combination of correct functional
decomposition and correct interface design. This
right design is evident in the case of physical
systems such as automobile steering, brake and gas
pedal design. Initially these were copied from the
horse carriage, bicycle and boating industries
(DetNews.Com 2004), but it soon became apparent
to designers that given the larger size and
functionality of the automobile, the pedals have to
be located on the floor and the tiller or handle
bar steering replaced with the now familiar
steering wheel (Two lane roads 2004). The fact
that it has been unchanged for decades is proof
that it is the right design for the given
functionality. The law further suggests that poor
designs have their roots in poor functional
decomposition and the manner in which these
functions are distributed into a command structure
(Sedgwick 1993).

VII. The Law of Efficient Information

Organization
The most efficient organization of information is
hierarchical.
If efficiency were defined in terms of access speed
or search cost, the most efficient organization of
information is hierarchical.
Hierarchy is a
recurrent theme in the information systems area. A
hierarchical organization efficiently divides the
search space and therefore reduces complexity.
Examples include hierarchy charts, menu designs,

Journal of Management Research

hierarchical planning, tree organization for data,

hierarchical indexes and hierarchical web designs.
The law suggests a hierarchical design where large
number of functions or large number of
information items are involved. The organization
of websites and display of search results from
search engines are applications that lend
themselves to this design.

VIII. The Law of Interconnected Systems

An interconnected system cannot be controlled.
An interconnected system is one where data or
processes are linked together with other data or
processes and executed as a whole.
A simple
example of this is where a spreadsheet file and a
word processing file are linked together. A system
that is interconnected is difficult to control unless
each interconnect is individually controllable.
Consider the following scenario in a system to
process electronic transfer of funds. Assume that
a large deposit in an account A results in smaller
transfers to accounts B, C and D. If for some
reason a user does not want the transfer to be
carried out to B, but to C and D, and control
has been provided only on the transfer from A,
the operation will result in a transaction failure.
Thus control needs to be provided at the points as
indicated in figure 2 below. The corollary to this
is the control principle, every operation of the system
must be controllable. The ability to control all
operations does not imply that all operations will
be controlled, as this would greatly slow down
B

Deposit

C
D

2 3 4

Control Needs to be
Proveded at 1, 2, 3 and 4

Figure 2: The Control Principle Showing the

Points at which Control Needs to be Provided

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December 2004

execution. However, such control must reside with

the user, in the form of ability to set defaults,
rather than with the system.

IX. The Law of Complex Interfaces

There cannot be a simple interface to a complex
system.
Complex systems are those with numerous
components or functions. Examples of such
systems are CASE tools, ERP systems, and
Language Extraction Systems (Cunningham et al.
2001). The law states that complex systems cannot
have simple interfaces.
This can be seen as a
variation on the Law of requisite variety, which
states that variety in a system must be at least as
great as the diversity in the environment in which
it exists (Ashby 1956). This and the observation
of many complex systems such as controls for
commercial jets suggest that the law of requisite
variety extends to interfaces to complex systems.
Natural language interfaces will appear to challenge
this law, but even here sophisticated symbol
systems (such as math, latitude/longitude) would
be needed to carry out complex tasks. The law of
technological evolution further suggests that this is
the ultimate direction for all system interfaces.

X. The Principle of Information

Independence
Users should be able to access their information
regardless of where it is physically located.
This principle is based on the concept of location
independence, in databases which states that users
must not be concerned about where the data is
physically located as long as they can access it
(McFadden, Hoffer and Prescott 2002). Similarly
the principle of information independence states
that in non-database settings, the user must not be
concerned about whether their information is
located at work or at home. Nowadays, many
employees carry their work home and sometimes
carry out personal errands from the work place. To
the extent that these errands are carried out
electronically, it would be advantageous for
companies to provide the physical interface
133

between workplace systems and

personal
computer systems. Thus an employee at work
should be able to access a valuable phone# or an
email address in his/her personal computer system
at home and vice versa.

that the passenger will be connecting to another

flight on a different airline, there is no hope at all
for the airline to resolve the problem or for the
traveler to correctly reach his/her destination. The
accommodation of soft information provides for
irregular transactions.

XI. The Law of Irregular Transactions

Information systems (which process transactions)
which cannot process irregular transactions are
doomed to fail.
If IS success were narrowly defined in terms of
transaction success, the failure to process irregular
transactions will amount to failure of the system.
An irregular transaction is a transaction whose
parameters and constraints vary from the normal
type of transaction. Examples of these are the
request for a child safety seat in a car rental
reservation or a request in a university
environment, to register for two courses which are
scheduled for the same time period. Such soft
failures may result in lost sales or will require extra
processing on the part of the organization. The
average firm spends $20-$40 to resolve each
problematic transaction (Scheier 2003). Thus
organizations will be motivated to have systems
which can handle irregular transactions.

XIII. The Law of Qualitative Decision

Models
It is impossible to calculate outcomes in a decision
situation that involves qualitative variables.
This law has been derived from the theory of
computability and is motivated by the authors
experience with cause mapping (Axelrod 1976).
According to computability theory, a problem is
computable if it is possible to design an algorithm,
if the algorithm is efficient/tractable and finally if
the solution state is discernible (Linz 2001). The
most obvious limit to computability in a decision
situation is if the decision variables are qualitative;
in this case, an outcome cannot be accurately
calculated, hence the law of qualitative decision
models. Even in the physical sciences, there are
limits to computability. For instance, Heisenbergs
uncertainty principle predicts that it is impossible
to determine simultaneously the mass and velocity
of a subatomic particle (Alcyone 2004).

XII. Soft Information Principle

Information
information.

systems

must

incorporate

soft

Most of the traditional transaction processing

systems handle only structured information. If
there are problems with the transaction,
organizations invest considerable time to resolve
them.
Consider the case of an international
traveler whose ticket has been issued manually by
a travel agent. The onward journey was booked
by the travel agent, but due to system constraints,
the return journey was not booked directly, but
sent to a consolidator. The return journey would
require two flights, but due to errors on the
consolidators side, only part of the return journey
was booked on one airline. If there is no
indication on the reservation for the return journey

134

XIV. The Law of Mental Models

The systems model must not exceed the users mental
model in complexity.
Users will use a system if they feel comfortable
with it. The first stage of usage is formulating a
mental model of the system, which is the users
conceptualization of the systems functions. The
systems model is the actual organization of system
functions. If users are unable to form a mental
model after a reasonable amount of interaction
with the system they will not feel comfortable with
it. Thus the systems model cannot exceed the
users mental model or else other resources (such
as training) may need to be expended on the user.
In the end such systems may be unsuccessful
(Sedgwick 1993).

Journal of Management Research

XV. Apportionment Principle

Tasks which can be carried out by the system should
be carried out by it.
Cognitive apportionment is a universally
recognized principle in designing user interfaces. It
simply means that the system must carry out as
much of the processing burden as possible
(Fjeldstad and Konsynski 1986). Simple examples
of apportionment are choice lists and option boxes
in GUI interfaces while more sophisticated
applications could include product buying
suggestions on an e-commerce site or suggestions
to improve queries in on-line databases.

XVI. The Principle of Sharing User

Information
All desktop systems must share information about the
user.
This may be seen as a corollary to the
apportionment principle. In order to minimize the
users effort in entering the information, all
desktop systems must share common information
about the user. Many systems do offer the
capability to define a profile, but unless this were
shared or organized more intelligently, users will
have to continue typing their information
repeatedly.

XVII. Information Responsibility Principle

Those who have information are obliged to share it
with those who need it.
The concept of information responsibility is a
key principle in the information-based firm. In his
article, the Coming of the New Organization,
Drucker (1989:p89) explains the term information
responsibility, as follows: Who in this
organization depends on me for what information?
And on whom, in turn, do I depend? Each
persons list always includes superiors and
subordinates. Information responsibility requires
people who have knowledge to share it with those
who need it. It is obviously a very basic, but
implicitly understood principle in the information

Volume 4, Number 3

December 2004

systems field. IT personnel are bound to the

information sharing principle whenever they
undertake systems development in an organization.

XVIII. The Principle of Information

Ownership
Owners of information must have access to it.
This may be seen as a corollary to the Information
Responsibility principle. Owners of information
will ultimately need to use it, and therefore
information access must be provided to them. In
a bank situation, information about a customers
account must be made available to the customer.
Further, they ought to have the ability to change
this information.

Conclusion
As noted earlier, laws are a result of observe,
theorize and test cycles. Knowledge in a
discipline is frequently based on explication and
application of laws. To the extent that information
systems is not a true science, we do not have a set
of laws from which the field is derived. In fact
we have a reverse situation in our field, where it is
the application area (systems development) that
is well defined. It is not surprising that many of
the laws described above revolve around the
development of systems as this is the primary
application area of the discipline (Chatterjee 2001).
Such laws include the Law of good systems,
The law of right design, The law of complex
interfaces, and The Law of interconnected
systems. These laws can have important
implications. The law of right design for
instance, suggests that every software has a correct
design which designers must find through a trial
and error process, by manipulating different
designs. The law of interconnected systems
suggests that designers must provide more control
over the systems operations to users. Obviously,
the laws are far from being precise. There are no
magic formulae to determine the number of
objects required for an application or number of
icons to place on a window. It is unlikely if this
state of affairs will ever be achieved. The laws
135

explicated here serve to embody the culture and

philosophy of the information systems discipline,

inviting further analysis, refutation, elaboration and

extension.

Notes
1. Light refracts when passing through a prism resulting in dispersion of colors.
2. Photoelectricity refers to the release of electrons when light strikes a photosensitive material.
3. Both of these are borrowed from other disciplines, Moores Law from Electrical Engineering and Transaction Cost theory
from Economics.
4. Readers may recall Newell and Simons symbol system hypothesis which postulates that a system of symbols and processes
to generate their interpretation are necessary and sufficient conditions for intelligent systems (Newell and Simon 1981).
The Law of Symbol systems is somewhat related to this idea although it is intellectually closer to Shannons information
theory.
5. The author concedes that in some cases, software has expanded without improvements to functionality.
6. These are also referred to as Strategic Information Systems.

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