Behavior Informatics: An Informatics Perspective for Behavior Studies

Behavior is increasingly recognized as a key entity in business intelligence and problem-solving. Even though behavior analysis has been extensively investigated in social sciences and behavior sciences, in which qualitative and psychological methods have been the main means, nevertheless to conduct formal representation and deep quantitative analysis it is timely to investigate behavior from the informatics perspective. This article highlights the basic framework of behavior informatics, which aims to supply methodologies, approaches, means and tools for formal behavior modeling and representation, behavioral data construction, behavior impact modeling, behavior network analysis, behavior pattern analysis, behavior presentation, management and use. Behavior informatics can greatly complement existing studies in terms of providing more formal, quantitative and computable mechanisms and tools for deep understanding and use.