“We Just Get Frustrated”: Exploring Factors that Shape Information Provision in Disability Services

This study investigates how disability providers engage in information provision within a fragmented disability service system. Through interviews with 61 providers from state, local, and nonprofit agencies from the state of Virginia, we identify two descriptive patterns of organizational information practices and five multi-level shaping factors: system disintegration, bureaucratic complexity, provider expertise, user technological readiness, and community trust. We show how these factors interact, producing layered strategies that providers develop to maintain and simplify information provision across fragmented and shifting service environments. These findings reframe information provision not as a linear transaction, but as a relational and adaptive practice shaped by institutional gaps and infrastructural complexity. The study offers a grounded account of how disability providers manage and coordinate information work in disability systems.

Venue: 
To Appear in Proceedings of the Association for Information Science and Technology (ASIST '25)
Authors: 
Latifah Abubakr
Samantha Whitman
Tulsi Shrivastava
Kathleen Pine
Pyeonghwa Kim
Myeong Lee