http://www.informationdesign.org/ Dedicated to the growth and improvement of the information experience industries. en-us plato@xs4all.nl 2010-08-26T16:44:39+01:00 hourly 1 2000-01-01T12:00+00:00 "Designers are proud of their ability to innovate, to think outside the box, to develop creative, powerful ideas for their clients. Sometimes these ideas win design prizes. However, the rate at which these ideas achieve commercial success is low. Many of the ideas die within the companies, never becoming a product. Among those that become products, a good number never reach commercial success." (Donald A. Norman ~ Core77) Information design 2010-08-26T16:44:39+01:00 "Humans around the world wear clothing and accessories to hide their bodies, to emphasise them, even to evoke magic. Indeed, personal ornaments appear to be among the first forms of symbolic communication. US psychologist Nancy Etcoff linked fashion to psychology in the sixth Premsela Lecture." (Nancy Etcoff ~ Premsela) Information design 2010-06-23T10:09:46+01:00 "Digital objects are marked by a limited set of variable yet generic attributes such as editability, interactivity, openness and distributedness. As digital objects diffuse throughout the institutional fabric, these attributes and the information–based operations and procedures out of which they are sustained install themselves at the heart of social practice. The entities and processes that constitute the stuff of social practice are thereby rendered increasingly unstable and transfigurable, producing a context of experience in which the certainties of recurring and recognizable objects are on the wane. These claims are supported with reference to 1) the elusive identity of digital documents and the problems of authentication/preservation of records such an identity posits and 2) the operations of search engines and the effects digital search has on the content of the documents it retrieves." (Jannis Kallinikos, Aleksi Aaltonen, and Attila Marton ~ First Monday Volume 15, Number 6) Information design 2010-06-08T13:48:03+01:00 "Within a new worldview emerging from chaos and complexity, networks and systems thinking, what are the ways to decentralise and distribute innovation, strategy and design?" (Josephine Green ~ Chi Nederland vids) Information design 2010-06-07T10:06:15+01:00 "Today, we measure the size of the Web in exabytes and are uploading to it 15 times more data than we were 3 years ago. Technologies for sensing, storing, and sharing information are driving innovation in the tools available to help us understand our world in greater detail and accuracy than ever before. The implications of analyzing data on a massive scale transcend the tech industry, impacting the environmental sector, social justice issues, health and science research, and more. When coupled with astute technical insight, data is dynamic, accessible, and ultimately, creative." (Marissa Mayer) Information design 2010-05-31T15:05:16+01:00 "There is a great gulf between the research community and practice. Moreover, there is often a great gull between what designers do and what industry needs. We believe we know how to do design, but this belief is based more on faith than on data, and this belief reinforces the gulf between the research community and practice. I find that the things we take most for granted are seldom examined or questioned. As a result, it is often our most fundamental beliefs that are apt to be wrong. In this talk, deliberately intended to be controversial, I examine some of our most cherished beliefs. Examples: design research helps create breakthrough products; complexity is bad and simplicity good; there is a natural chain from research to product." (Videos of the IIT Institute of Design) Information design 2010-05-26T11:24:54+01:00 "It was a breath of fresh air not to be surrounded by fellow ad folk. Maybe you were there, but I didn't spot you or find your tweets. There were certainly some designers and UX people. I found the lecture a mixed bag - it was certainly a lecture rather than a presentation. During the introduction and the conclusion Tufte seemed rather uncomfortable whilst reading from notes. But the core of the content, around analytical design, was delivered away from the lectern and that was when Tufte and the lecture came to life. My take out from the evening was that information doesn't care what it is; but how it is brought to life is critical for its interpretation and power as a communicator. 'Whatever it takes' was Tufte's recurring theme about how to visualise data, avoiding being a slave to a particular methodology." (MBA Blog) Information design 2010-05-25T14:56:11+01:00 "A good table communicates a lot of information in a concise, easy to understand way. Because the emphasis really should be on the information, over-designing a table can kill the effectiveness. However, in the right hands, clever design can not only make a table more attractive, but can actually increase readability." (Design Shack) Information design 2010-05-19T13:38:28+01:00 "Perceptions of the web are changing. People are advocating that we treat the web like another application framework. An open, cross-platform, multi-device rival to Flash and Cocoa and everything else. I’m all for making the web richer, and exposing new functionality, but I value what makes the web weblike much, much more." (Ben Ward) courtesy of rogerjohansson Information design 2010-05-11T09:54:41+01:00 "But in the most pleasing connection of all -- and the Commissioner was, is and shall always be about connection -- remembering connects with learning." (Richard S. Wurman - Huffington Post) Information design 2010-04-28T15:11:27+01:00 "Four years ago Cameron Moll gave a presentation on 9 skills that separate good designers and great designers. It's a great talk and if you have the chance I suggest you at least check out the PDF slidedeck. I think the points he makes in the presentation are still relevant today and go a long way in educating us in how designers should be approaching their interactive designs." (Drawar) Information design 2010-04-28T10:14:50+01:00 "When you do information architecture work you’ll realize that most sets of content can be organized in more than one way. One of the challenges for an IA project is figuring out what way works best for your audience, your content and your project’s goals." (Donna Maurer - UXBooth) Information design 2010-04-28T09:39:50+01:00 "Based on Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, the idea of a design hierarchy of needs rests on the assumption that in order to be successful, a design must meet basic needs before it can satisfy higher-level needs. Before a design can 'Wow' us, it must work as intended. It must meet some minimal need or nothing else will really matter. Is this true? Or could a design that's hard to use still succeed because it makes users more proficient or meets certain creative needs? Do you have to get all of the low-level needs exactly right before considering higher-level needs? To answer these questions, let's start by looking at Maslow's hierarchy." (Steven Bradley - Smashing Magazine) Information design 2010-04-26T14:22:06+01:00 "A mental model represents a person's thought process for how something works (i.e., a person's understanding of the surrounding world). Mental models are based on incomplete facts, past experiences, and even intuitive perceptions. (...) A conceptual model is the actual model that is given to the user through the interface of the product." (Susan Weinschenk - UX Magazine) Design research 2010-04-15T09:44:33+01:00 "(...) it has been apparent that design studios and corporate departments have been looking for a new kind of designer, one that has traditional skills and yet a much broader perspective on problem solving. Because one of AIGA’s central responsibilities is to keep abreast of developments in the industry, we recognized that we needed to better understand the emerging role of designers and to enter into a deeper discussion with educators and design leaders on how to prepare designers for future changes." (AIGA) Information design 2010-04-14T16:26:47+01:00