An introduction to information design
Information design, also known as communication design, 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, signs, computer interfaces, technical information and operating/assembly instructions. Information designers responding to these needs have achieved major economic and social improvements in information use.
Today information design is engaged in most complex projects which involve communication with customers, suppliers, partners and citizens – particularly where the costs of misunderstanding are large. Some examples of bad information design might include: forms that are incorrectly completed and costly to process; instructions that cause frustration and even danger and that may damage the reputation of the provider; education materials that fail to promote learning; scientific and technical data that is easily to misinterpret; command and control displays that fail to alert operators to potentially dangerous situations; and websites that are difficult to navigate and unpleasant to look at.
Information design is user-centred. Usually, it is iterative - design solutions are tested and modified repeatedly. Sometimes the testing is local and informal; sometimes a project justifies formal and extensive usability testing and evaluation.
Information designers serve the needs of both information providers and information users. They consider the selection, structuring and presentation of the information provider's message in relation to the purposes, skills, experience, preferences and circumstances of the intended users. To do this they draw on specialist knowledge and skills in a number of fundamental areas.
Information designers order and structure information on behalf of users. The information architect - a new role necessitated by the emergence of very large websites and information systems - is part information designer, part information scientist, part information systems professional. They create the order, taxonomies and navigation interfaces that allow us to use today's million-page websites efficiently.
Information designers use typography and graphic design to organise and articulate information with the needs of particular users and circumstances of use in mind. They improve many kinds of explanatory and instructional texts by transforming complex material so that it is easy to understand as well as being attractive.
Information designers draw on research in a number of fields, such as the psychology of reading and learning, human-computer interaction, usability and linguistics. In an individual project, expect the information designer to ask 'how will we know if it works?' as well as 'does it look great and support the brand?'
Today, many information products, from dictionaries through city guides to parts catalogues may be accessed via paper, the internet, digital TV and phones or PDAs from a single information base. Information designers can help to make that information usable by shaping different interfaces for each 'channel' to meet needs of users and the characteristics of the channel.
Information designers can improve the clarity of documents by:
- Redrafting existing documents into clear language
- Writing documents from functional descriptions
- Auditing existing documents to help staff improve them
- Producing useful writing tools such as guidelines and examples, online thesauruses tailored to particular needs, training and awareness programs
Information designers understand that documents have contexts. They exist in real organisations and have real jobs to do. To make them work may well mean changing the way the organisation works as well as changing the way a document looks and reads. It may mean adding new, or abolishing existing, documents, or changing the way information moves - for instance from paper to electronic means. And it means being ready and able to measure the business impact of new ways of doing things.
Information designers can take an idea and follow through with research and copywriting to meet the communication needs. Because many information designers write and design together, the resulting product is far more focused on a vision of what will work with particular users. This approach also has management advantages: 'drafts' (and revisions) normally appear faster, and sometimes cost less than doing two jobs separately and trying to synchronise them.