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Information design

Introductory articles

• Information design: an introduction
  Information design is concerned with transforming data into information, making the complex easier to understand and to use. It is a rapidly growing discipline that draws on typography, graphic design, applied linguistics, applied psychology, applied ergonomics, computing, and other fields. It emerged as a response to people's need to understand and use such things as forms, legal documents, computer interfaces and technical information.

Discussion articles

• Animation
  "Animation permits the representation of change, including time in the visual equation. In this issue we review the basic variables of animation and the profit we can extract from its use."
  (Juan C Duersteler)

• Depth cues for information design
  This paper details a way to apply the cognitive science of visual perception as a means to improve the practice of information design. Environmental cues trigger our sense of depth, and influence form, organisation, attention. The paper outlines how we may apply the cues for more effective communication.

• Domains of design
  The discipline of interface design is varied because the term "interface" means different things to different people, depending on their particular training and expertise. Because it encompasses so much, we've found it useful to break interface design into three general domains of design (each of which individually draws on a combination of skills from different disciplines). This helps to identify problems, issues or questions, and to address them with solutions of appropriate scale. These domains are information design, interface design and interaction design.

• Elegance through simplicity
  By keeping goals in mind and design simple, you can achieve elegant, easily understandable data presentations.

• Gallery of stick-figure warning signs
  A good stick-figure warning sign should be immediately recognizeable in its message, even if the viewer does not understand the language of the sign's text.

• Information design: a map to meaning (PDF)
  Presentation notes covering the value of information design, practices and principles and case studies of how information design is used to improve communication and meaning.
  (Peter Lawrence, Andrew Maydoney)

• Information design: the understanding discipline
  There is no consensus on the definition of information design. Definitions of the discipline from stakeholders who associate themselves with the field are consistent only in that they are typically high level, not very concrete and do not offer much in the way of direct practical application.

• Panadol 24 pack: new instructions for consumers
  This case history demonstrates how information design research and practice can bring about useful social change on a large scale. It is a lightly edited version of a report prepared for GlaxoSmithKline in August 2002 following our work on redeveloping the consumer instructions for Panadol, the most widely used paracetemol analgesic in Australia.

• Refining data tables
  "After forms, data tables are likely the next most ubiquitous interface element designers create when constructing Web applications. Users often need to add, edit, delete, search for, and browse through lists of people, places, or things within Web applications. As a result, the design of tables plays a crucial role in such an application’s overall usefulness and usability. But just like the design of forms, there’s more than one way to design tabular data."
  (Luke Wroblewski - UXmatters)

• So the necessary may speak
  "Interactive products, by their very nature, tend to be complicated. They allow us to create and control large amounts of information and enable many unique interactions. As a result, there’s a natural tendency for interface designs to over-communicate, or establish multiple forms of dialogue and vocabularies within a single application or interaction. Complicated concepts require more explanation, right? Not always."
  (Luke Wroblewski - UXmatters)

• Small multiples within a user interface
  "Many software programs provide access to, and let users work with, large amounts of information. In addition to interactions that allow users to create, edit, and expand massive data sets, these information-rich applications must also support effective data interpretation."
  (Luke Wroblewski - UXmatters)

• The document triangle: the interdependence of the structure, information and presentation dimensions
  Every paper and digital document shares three basic dimensions: structure, information and presentation. Although these dimensions are always interwoven, some people in the digital world mostly focus on document structures (e.g. information architects), some on the information they contain (e.g. marketers and writers/editors) while others specialise in the (interactive) presentation aspects (e.g. visual designers and Flash developers). The mutual dependence and interaction of these dimensions is the next level of design and does not regularly get the proper attention. In order to better understand the relationship between these dimensions, we need to look at each of them seperately, and how they inter-relate.

• The information design approach to web development
  Aside from people, information is the single most valuable asset for business. At every level, in every department, for every company, information is critical. Information design is dedicated to making information as effective as possible. In order to be as effective as possible, information must carefully balance a variety of factors, including, but not limited to clarity, relevance, timeliness, amplitude, volume, and differentiation.

• There is no such thing as information design
  The popular term, information design, is a misnomer. Information cannot be designed; what can be designed are the modes of transfer and the representations of information. This is inherent in the nature of information, and it is important for designers to keep the concepts of information and meaning distinct.

• The user's voice in the timetable dialogue
  Research indicates that people have difficulty understanding and using public transport timetables when they are presented in the well-established genre of a two-dimensional matrix. In a project undertaken for the State Department of Transport in Queensland, Australia, we used a methodology which integrated user’s information needs with research into historical design solutions, legibility, and current technology. Our application of the methodology generated a design solution which our testing showed helped to enhance user’s effective understanding of the public transport system.

Research articles

• Information on the assembly line: a review of information design and its implication for technical communicators
  This Masters thesis seeks to understand what information design is and the role that technical communicators can play in this important and emerging field. A comprehensive literature review, this thesis seeks to represent and summarise the overall body of work within the field of technical communication concerning information design and its related issues, as well as to suggest ways in which technical communicators can better participate in the design and implementation of information design systems.

Resource collections

• Articles on information design
  A collection of links to high quality online resources in information design. Part of the EServer TC Library project.