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Information Design this page

It's the Content Management, Stupid
by Jim Howard
New Media, August 8, 2001

This nightmare scenario arises from valuing content but failing to understand the infrastructure and technology issues that support its timely development, presentation and publication.

Digital Web Magazine - The web designer's online magazine of choice.

Digitalthread - the first arrival point for digital design

It's a new field and it's a rapidly changing field. So take your pick:

Information design is ...

... the communication of complex information through clear language and design.

Information Design Unit

... what helps explain things. It uses language, typography, graphic design, and systems and business process improvement as its key tools. It is focused on users and is committed to using usability and other research and testing to find out whether its products actually achieve their objectives.

Text Matters

... a theoretical structure by which information is organised and presented. The separation of document design into information and graphic design ...

Mike Fletcher, University of Waterloo

... applying the principles of design to the selection, organization, and presentation of information. From paragraphs to pie charts and CD-ROMs to Web sites, it is a means of building effective information products.

Ken Dow, Maricopa Information Design

... based on a process view of intentional transformation of data-elements into information ... in order to obtain an understandable representation.

Peter Bogaards, TS Design, Amsterdam
now of Razorfish

The End of Books
by Robert Coover
NY Times, June 21, 1992

Students are notoriously conservative creatures. They write stubbornly and hopefully within the tradition of what they have read. Getting them to try out alternative or innovative forms is harder than talking them into chastity as a life style.

But confronted with hyperspace, they have no choice: all the comforting structures have been erased. It's improvise or go home.

Some frantically rebuild those old structures, some just get lost and drift out of sight, most leap in fearlessly without even asking how deep it is (infinitely deep) and admit, even as they paddle for dear life, that this new arena is indeed an exciting, provocative if frequently frustrating medium for the creation of new narratives, a potentially revolutionary space, capable, exactly as advertised, of transforming the very art of [writing], even if it now remains somewhat at the fringe, remote still, in these very early days, from the mainstream.

Who Are Information Designers?

For a wider definition, here's an email that Gillian Crampton Smith of the Royal College of Art sent to a mailing list that I get.

They are interested in making things that people respond to emotionally, as well as things that work well for them. They work with cultural effects as well as practical effects. (I'm using cultural here not in the sense of high culture, but everyday culture that affects what we choose to make, see and do.)

So a building is not just a place to keep out the weather, nor is it only "a machine for living" as Le Corbusier would have us believe; it also has a symbolic value, so we can tell the difference between a town hall and a filling station and we "read" the symbolism of a corporate headquarters as in the past people read the symbolism of a gothic cathedral.

It also can -- and should -- delight us. Everything we give form to has elements that are understood because they refer indirectly to society's shared pool of meanings -- its culture. Chartres cathedral does not need a large sign outside saying "This is the House of God". We know it is because our culture has taught us to interpret the form of buildings.

See John Seely Brown's similar observations in The Social Life of Documents.

An information designer is ...

the individual who organizes the patterns inherent in data, making the complex clear

a person who creates the structure or map of information which allows others to find their personal path to knowledge

the emerging 21st century professional occupation addressing the needs of the age focused upon clarity, human understanding, and the science of the organization of information

Richard Saul Wurman
Information Architects
See also his new project: Understanding USA

The most important skills in the next decade and beyond will be the abilities to create information and experiences for others that are valuable, compelling, and empowering. To do this, we must learn new ways of organizing and presenting data and information to directly address these phenomena:

information overload
information anxiety
media literacy
media immersion

Nathan Shedroff
vivid studios

Information Architecture

Usability Experts are from Mars, Graphic Designers are from Venus
by Curt Cloninger
A List Apart, 2000

Who Says Design Should Be Simple?
by _____
New Media, 2000

Argus Center for Information Architecture

Becoming an Information Architect
Monster.com

Webmonkey's Information Architecture Tutorial

Built 2 Order
by Roger C. Parker
Publish magazine, July 2000

Designing Web Usability: The Practice of Simplicity
by Jakob Nielsen
New Riders, $45

Information Architecture for the World Wide Web
by Louis Rosenfeld and Peter Morville
O'Reilly & Associates, $24.95

Web Site Usability: A Designer's Guide
by Jared Spool, et al.
Morgan Kaufman, $29.95

Web Navigation: Designing the User Experience
by Jennifer Fleming, et al.
O'Reilly & Associates, $34.95

Information Brokers

the business of buying and selling information as a commodity

A Brief History of Information Brokering
by Marilyn M. Levine
ASIS Bulletin, February 1995

online research
digital document creation
database design

What if you get paid for it?

How difficult is it to find information on the Web? What turns that information into knowledge: information commented on, absorbed into a context, and presented attractively?

A link editor acts as an intermediary between those who seek information and the information on the various interconnected Web servers. Link editors acquire, improve, promote, and distribute information and images. Are you interested?

Job description from September 2000.

A New York based e-business solutions provider is looking for a very seasoned Information Architect. This person should have a mix of 3-5 years hands-on production experience with at least 1 full year in the position of Information Architect. This is a senior level position which requires a seasoned veteran who can facilitate client meetings and organize a team of information architects.

Responsibilities:

* Facilitate discovery and definition sessions with the client and other stakeholders
* Lead the documentation of use-cases and other core functionality documentation
* Lead and manage the creation of high-level detailed wireframes of the use cases
* Hand-off IA documentation to the production and design teams

Qualifications:

* 3-5 years hands-on production experience
* Fluent working knowledge of HTML, JavaScript, CSS
* Real knowledge (non-working) of back-end systems: middleware, databases
* Min. 1 full year in the role of Information Architect or similar position (we realize that titles at companies vary)
* Fluent in Visio or similar schematic drawing tool
* Ability to facilitate a large group discussion
* Excellent communications skills (written and spoken)

This role is the linchpin role of our projects. The IA is a center piece of the discovery and definition phases for us and we take this role very seriously. In essence you are our key consultant leading the early conceptual and even developmental stages of a project.

Gain: AIGA Journal of Design for the Network Economy. The American Institute of Graphic Arts' hub for all things experience design. Case studies, though-provoking articles, and profiles.

Useit.com. Jakob Nielsen's ongoing series of articles on information architecture and information design. Not much on the graphic end but tons of good thoughts on how to make sites that actually work.

Creative Good. One of the best customer-experience consultancies out there. An incredible array of good research and resources on its site.

Goodexperience.com. Creative Good founder Mark Hurst's Web site and archive of his Good Experience newsletter. Weekly news, insight, and all-around great commentary about customer experience design.

Quarry Integrated Communications' Idea Mine. Fabulous selection of presentations (some great intros to the field), white papers, discussions, and commentary from some innovators in the Web usability and experience field.

ACM's interactions. The site for the Association for Computing Machinery's human-computer interaction interest group. Lots of good articles focusing a little bit more on the academic/technical end of things.

Metropolis. Typically focuses more on the architecture/interior design world (but keeping up with these areas really helps spark ideas for the interactive end).

organizations and conferences

Jan 13-16, 2002: IUI 2002 International Conference on
      Intelligent User Interfaces, San Francisco, California, USA
      http://www.iuiconf.org/

Feb 20-23, 2002: TED 12. 12@12
      Monterey, CA, USA
      http://www.ted.com/tedxii.html

March 25-27, 2002: AAAI 2002 Spring Symposium: Sketch    
      Understanding. Stanford, Palo Alto, California, USA
      http://www.me.cmu.edu/faculty1/stahovich/sketchsymposium.htm
      http://www.aaai.org/Symposia/Spring/2002/sss-02.html

April 18-20, 2002: Diagrams 2002 - Second International
      Conference on Theory and Application of Diagrams.
      Callaway Gardens, Georgia, USA
      http://kogs-www.informatik.uni-hamburg.de/~d2k2/

April 20-25, 2002: CHI 2002. Changing The World, Changing
      Ourselves - Conference on Human Factors in Computing
      Systems. Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA
      http://www1.acm.org/sigs/sigchi/chi2002/usability.html

May 5-8, 2002: STC Conference
      Nashville, Tennessee, USA
      http://www.stc.org/2002_conference.html
      http://www.stcsig.org/usability/activities/conference.html

May 14-17, 2002: 7th International Design conference
      Dubrovnik, Croatia
      http://www.cadlab.fsb.hr/design2002/Home.htm

May 22-24, 2002: Advanced visual interfaces
      Trento, Italy
      http://www.diel.univaq.it/avi2002

May 22-25, 2002: 6th Scientific Congress: Work with display
      units, Congress Center Berchtesgaden, Germany
      http://www.wwdu.org/2002

June 11-13, 2002: SG2002. 2nd International Symposium on Smart
      Graphics IBM TJ Watson Research Center, Hawthorne, NY, USA
      http://www.smartgraphics.org/sg02/

June 23-25, 2002: Participation and Design. Inquiring into the
      politics, contexts and practices of collaborative design
      work. Malmoe University, Malmoe, Sweden
      http://pdc2002.interactiveinstitute.se/

June 25-28, 2002: DIS 2002. Designing interactive systems
      London, UK
      http://www.sigchi.org/DIS2002/

July 5, 2002: Research into practice 2
      University of Hertfordshire, UK
      http://www.artdes.herts.ac.uk/res2prac/

July 8-12, 2002: UPA (Usability Professionals' Association)
      Orlando, FL, USA
      http://www.upassoc.org/new/conferences/2002/index.html

July 15-19, 2002: Reconciliation through communication.
      52nd annual conference: International Communication
      Association Seoul, Korea
      http://www.ica2002.or.kr
      http://www.icahdq.org/2002Call2paper.pdf

Aug 25-30, 2002: HCI stream. Usability: gaining a competitive
      edge. IFIP world computer congress 2002. HCI stream.
      Montreal, Canada.
      http://www.wcc2002.org/en/index.html

Sept 2-6, 2002: EUPA 2002. First European Usability Professionals
      Association Conference. London, UK
      http://www.hci2002.org

Sept 5-8, 2002: Design Research Society International
      conference: 'Common ground'. Brunel University, London.
      http://www.brunel.ac.uk/depts/des/drs/

Sept 17-20: 2002: IPCC 2002 International Professional
      Communication Conference: Portland, Oregon.
      http://ieeepcs.org/2002/