http://www.informationdesign.org/ Dedicated to the growth and improvement of the information experience industries. en-us plato@xs4all.nl 2012-02-03T09:13:15+01:00 hourly 1 2000-01-01T12:00+00:00 Information design, one of the many giant fields on which shoulders we stand. "In a competitive business marketplace, not everyone wants to acknowledge that each generation tends to learn from, build on or divert from the previous generations ideas and output. We see this phenomenon clearly evident in the various streams of Information Design history." (GK VanPatter ~ Humantific) Information design 2012-02-03T09:13:15+01:00 Design as seen by many non-designers as the new silver bullet. Forget it! "It's becoming increasingly difficult to ignore the fact that design has a massive role to play in the evolution of the web and the next generation of web products." (Cameron Koczon a.k.a. @FictiveCameron ~ A List Apart) Information design 2012-01-17T13:02:40+01:00 Information design 2012-01-13T09:19:30+01:00 The Technium does its work. "There is a technological revolution in the air, not because new principles and technologies have been discovered, but because so many past technologies have simultaneously reached a state of maturity that they can be incorporated into everyday technology. These cusps in technology produce new opportunities, but until the marketplace settles down, they also deliver considerable confusion and chaos. Each of the changes discussed here seems relatively minor and inconsequential, but taken as a whole, they pose considerable problems and potential risks which I summarize in the afterward." (Donald A. Norman a.k.a. @jnd1er) Information design 2012-01-10T20:11:39+01:00 The brightness of Design as the silver bullet is increasing. "The purpose of this design plan is to bring the design elements of the strategy together in one place and to communicate these as widely as possible across design, industry, government and education. The Design Council's aim is to provide a useful strategic framework for organisations, institutions and individual businesses with an interest in making design-led innovation happen. Design can help organisations transform their performance, from business product innovation, to the commercialisation of science and the delivery of public services. That is why design forms an integral part of the Government's plans for innovation and growth and features strongly in our Innovation and Research Strategy for Growth." (Fred Zimny) Information design 2012-01-04T21:39:40+01:00 Really hope her dissertation changes the discourse. "The attention for experiences as economic offerings has increased enormously in the last decade. However, the lack of a clear definition of experience and the bias towards the organization's perspective in the discourse cause much confusion. In this study experience is taken back to its basis: the encounter between an individual and his or her environment. Different concepts, effects and values of experience are defined to construct a more integrative discourse for the experience economy from the individual's perspective. To reap the benefits that the experience economy offers, the role of organizations has to change from a directing and controlling one to a more supporting and facilitating one. A true recognition of the co-creation that takes place in experiences shows how much latent potential for creating value there is yet to discover." (Anna Snel a.k.a. @annasnel) Design research 2011-12-14T14:40:59+01:00 Introducing an old concept to a 'new' field of practice. Sigh! "All it takes is a moment for our mood to change. Ideas and complex concepts can form in seconds given the right amount of cognitive capacity. Even something as simple as the way a sentence is structured or the words we choose will impact perceptions or the potential for another's comprehension. It's precisely for all of these ambient, behavioral and situational factors that content strategists should be better leveraging mental mapping and modeling for the planning, design and implementation of content. Mental Modeling is far from a new thing. (...) the first post in a three part series about adapting traditional views of mental modeling for the practice of content strategy." (Daniel Eizans a.k.a. @danieleizans) Information design 2011-11-22T11:32:18+01:00 Where did I read that definition of Design before? "Jay zeroes in on the design process at companies that do design well. The companies come in different shapes and sizes. The point is that design is something at which any company can succeed. Jay will talk about how companies that embrace the idea that design is about creating a great experience are the ones that will flourish in the 21st Century." (Jay Greene ~ HIVE 2011) Information design 2011-11-03T13:55:38+01:00 Allways good to be remembered where we're coming from. "Information design principles should not be rewritten by relative newcomers who show no awareness or appreciation of the field's long history." (Elizabeth Pastor ~ Humanific) Information design 2011-11-03T09:12:28+01:00 Not really sure why we changed data and information into content, as if it's something completely different. "Content can be a little frightening, it's true. Not to everyone mind you. Some people simply love content, with all its oddities and challenges. More often than not these are the people who spend much of their time designing and creating content. But there are definitely people who look somewhat askance at this thing called 'content'. The reasons why some people are less than enamored with content are worth considering and not only to refute them. There may well be good reasons to be afraid - or at least to approach content with due respect." (Joe Gollner a.k.a. @joegollner ~ The Fractal Enterprise) Information architecture 2011-10-19T11:58:34+01:00 We not only love people, but products as well. And they don't talk back, sort of. "People often say they love a product. What do they really mean when they say this, and is this a phenomenon that is relevant to the field of design? Findings from a preliminary study in this thesis indicated that people describe their love as a rewarding, long-term, and dynamic experience that arises from a meaningful relationship built with products they own and use. Inspired by existing approaches to the experience of love from social psychology, research tools are developed for the closer study of person-product love. Using those tools the research in this thesis investigates how person-product interactions are linked to the experience of love and how these influence love over time. The findings reveal how the experience of love arises from person-product relationships, how love relationships develop over time, and which factors can provoke change in the love experience and love relationships over time. These findings present opportunities for design researchers and designers to foster rewarding experiences and long-lasting person-product relationships. Person-product love relationships can bring emotional rewards that benefit people's wellbeing and stimulate sustained efforts to keep loved products for longer." (Beatriz Russo ~ Technical University Delft) Design research 2011-10-04T15:09:47+01:00 But where's the magic from these wizards? "When I find myself designing an application that is complex, either in terms of its length or its logical dependencies, my natural instinct is to take a wizard approach. Wizards are cool; forms are dull. Product managers love wizards because they are so Web 2.0. Developers like wizards because they involve more programming expertise than just cranking out forms." (Mike Hughes ~ UXmatters) Information design 2011-09-19T10:48:43+01:00 Great to see such an important concept researched. "On 16th June 2010, a workshop took place at Dundee Contemporary Arts with the aim of gaining an initial understanding of the nature of serendipity. This workshop involved 3 groups of interdisciplinary researchers and academics generating examples from their work or everyday lives that they deemed to be serendipitous. These examples, along with any patterns identified, were then discussed with the larger group. It was proposed that serendipitous events are unexpected, with the specific serendipitous outcomes unintended. It was also proposed that serendipitous outcomes are clear and positive, always resulting in a change in the head (and sometimes in a change in the world). It was also suggested that while some serendipitous connections might be recognised immediately, others might only be recognised after some time, or might not be recognised at all." (Stephann Makri & Ann Blandford ~ Information Research Vol. 16 no. 3) Information design 2011-09-16T13:28:40+01:00 I guess, content is becoming as fluid as possible. "The last few years have been a good time to be a web designer. After a decade of making do with the aging technologies, methods and assumptions that gave birth to mainstream web publishing, designers are starting to trade the tiresome challenge of controlling the user experience for a few more interesting ones." (Chris Palmieri a.k.a. @cpalmieri ~ AQWorks) Technology 2011-09-06T16:47:39+01:00 "What's interesting is that over 20 years before sparklines came on the scene, Tufte developed a different type of data visualization that didn't fare nearly as well. To date, in fact, I've only been able to find three examples of it, and even they aren't completely in line with his vision. (...) In this post, we're going to look at slopegraphs - what they are, how they're made, why they haven't seen a massive uptake so far, and why I think they're about to become much more popular in the near future." (Charlie Park a.k.a. @charliepark) Information graphics 2011-07-12T14:20:09+01:00