There are many challenges facing information designers as well as information providers and users – not least getting people to understand the importance of information design
There is a need to seek out new methodologies that usefully combine the strengths of a planned, sequential approach to project management with the strengths of the iterative, intuitive approach of traditional designers.
An integrated approach to the design of documents, whether printed or electronic, requires a number of different kinds of expertise. Increasingly, no single person is likely to have all the skills needed to carry through a major design project. In particular, information systems professionals need to develop project methodologies which incorporate information design skills early in the project development process.
Using research from a number of disciplines can help information designers to avoid unproductive approaches to a problem. The challenge is to locate relevant research and understand its implications.
With the ready availability of computers and software, there is an increasing tendency in all sectors for printed and electronic documents to be produced by people without any design training. The challenge is to demonstrate that information design can be of real and measurable benefit to both information providers and information users, and to find ways of delivering the benefits of information design to document-making systems as well as to individual documents.
The increasing use of the web as a way of delivering information to the public means that information providers must cater for a range of IT skills and must ensure that people with disabilities are not excluded.
A multi-channel world requires the creation of information that can be rendered on paper, on the web, on digital TV, a phone screen...the list is endless. The challenge for information design is to make this work and to make sure the information is usable in each of these situations.