Userinfo strings are maintained by the server system, so they are persistant across level loads, while all other game visible data is completely reset.
Each client has a "user info" string which is a backslash delimited key/value pair for the various options the user can set.
This is data sent to server form client, and can be treated as a sort of confirmation message.
For example, model, skin and weapon colour. trap_GetUserinfo fills the buffer pointed to by *buffer with the userinfo of the client referenced by num.
Key values are then retrieved using Info_ValueForKey( buffer, keyname ).