Entries from Kelake tagged with 'Information design'
General Philosophy for Increasing Data Comprehension
Notes based on the work of Edward Tufte. High density is good: the human eye/brain can select, filter, edit, group, structure, highlight, focus, blend, outline, cluster, itemize, winnow, sort, abstract, smooth, isolate, idealize, summarize, etc. Give people the data so...
An old definition of Information Design
Information design is concerned with transforming data into information, making the complex easier to understand and to use. It is a rapidly growing discipline that draws on typography, graphic design, applied linguistics, applied psychology, applied ergonomics, computing, and other fields....
Taipei MRT Wayfinding (Signage Study)
I originally published this back in 2003 and found it accidently today and decided to resurrect it with a few changes. When I was in Grad. school I was sent to examine the inconsistencies in the MRT sign-age system....
Representing Content and Data in Wireframes (ba)
“Sample data can make or break a wireframe, whose purpose is typically to illustrate architecture and interaction. Poorly selected sample data can end up clouding the wireframe or distracting stakeholders from its purpose. By codifying the types of sample content...
Forms: The importance of getting it right
"Problems start when forms are forgotten or not given the attention they require. Forms are not seen as exciting or prestigious when compared to a glossy brochure, so they are often left with no owner or person responsible for them,...
Checklist for Building the Ideal News Web Site
"Here's a list of ideas for how news sites could do things differently. Some of these notions are mine (based on years of covering this industry as a journalist, researcher and occasional consultant); others come from top consultants and academics...
Paul's Interactions: Spit-Not-So, or What's in the Layout?
"Many tasks involve the processing of information from different sources. Some information needed resides in the memory of the person. Other information is in physical things: dials, screens even the position of objects. Physical (and similarly virtual) objects act as...
Depth Cues for Information Design
This paper details a way to apply the cognitive science of visual perception as a means to improve the practice of information design. Environmental cues trigger our sense of depth, and influence form, organization, attention. The paper outlines how we...
CSCA Lecture: Some Ways Graphics Communicate
"External representations are in essence cognitive tools. Cognitive artifacts (e.g. graphics) are human only. There are no examples of animals using cognitive tools. A lot of human collaboration goes without words. The dyads in the research produced more abstract instructions...
A Simple Classification of Interactive Visual Explainers
"Visual representations have been used since the dawn of human civilization to communicate - to reveal the hidden, illustrate the intricate, explain the complex and illuminate the obscure. Constructing visual representation of information is not mere translation of what can...
An Introduction to Information Design
I just uploaded a shortened presentation that I give to non-practioners on information design. I say nothing new so for the initiated there might be nothing for you. It does raise a few points that have led to some interesting...
Introduction to Information Design
A shortened presentation that I gave to non-practioners on information design. I say nothing new so for the initiated there might be nothing for you. It does raise a few points that have led to some interesting discussions in the...
Toward the Evocation of Meaning
"Information society will create relationships in real time around the world through travel and communication. Different languages, different ways of life, and different cultures come directly into our homes through the communications industry and television. This allows for the creation...
Quality publishing is about saying no
"You know, the groups and programs that we don't want to push are doing lots of publishing on the intranet and public website. That's because they're trying to justify their existence." This is a statement from a senior executive from...
We are all researchers
"We live in an age of alsos, adapting to alternatives. because we have greater access to information, many of us have become more involved in researching, and making our own decisions, rather than relying on experts. The opportunity is that...
Better Web Forms
"A short form is a good form. The shorter and more simple you can keep it, the more likely a user is to fill it out properly. If possible cut fields from the form, and whatever you do, don't duplicate...
Information Design: The Understanding Discipline
Yet another article presenting yet another definition of information design. Perhaps the most interesting part of which is the lively discussion that follows. But within the article there are some valuable, if somewhat basic, points: "Remember that information only has...
Weblogs as a good example of information design
"We are being pummeled by a deluge of data and unless we create time and spaces in which to reflect, we will be left with only our reactions. I strongly believe in the power of weblogs to transform both writers...
Technology Intoxication
A quote sourced from Richard Saul Wurman's, Information Anxiety 2. The symptoms of a Technologically Intoxicated Zone are: 1. We favor the quick fix, from religion to nitrition. 2. We fear and worship technology. 3. We blur the distinction between...
Information Design For A Better World?
An interesting question and response: "As the 'Information Revolution' gathers momentum*, information designers are increasingly being cast as the 'midwives' who can deliver the 'humanized' products of a systems culture. On the one hand, we develop the instruments that coax...
The Information Design approach to Web development
"More than its value to business, information is also the principle component to human knowledge and progress. By experiencing information—through any of the available senses—people are able to build knowledge. Particularly when the information is relevant and good, people are...
The Cognitive Style of PowerPoint
Edward Tufte has published a essay called "The Cognitive Style of PowerPoint." "In corporate and government bureaucracies, the standard method for making a presentation is to talk about a list of points organized onto slides projected up on the wall....
Six Tips for Improving Your Design Documentation
"If you are a designer or product planner, you probably create documents of some kind to capture your design decisions and solutions. Documentation is a crucial component of successful product planning and implementation, so it's important that it communicates as...
The Power of Maps
"I think that if space is deed the "final frontier" then we are all in big trouble-at least in so far as social and political theory go. Perhaps the contemporary shift to metaphors of space as modes of intelligibility is...
Conceptual Presentations
5{ ns are becoming increasingly visual and less textual. Converting every concept into an image is the challenge and, at the same time, the solution. Presentations with visual support, typically running under PowerPoint, have become ubiquitous. All of us have been...
News infographics: The Art Of Explanation
"Poynter Online would like to showcase the efforts of visual journalists as they help readers find clarity. "The Art of Explanation" is a place to share ideas and processes as we continue to improve the graphics we create. We invite artists from...
Conversation
More from "Understanding"... Conversation is the most natural, effective, yet most complex mode of human connection. The goal of conversation is understanding between the participants. Successful visual communication design can be defined as frozen conversation much as wonderful architecture is...
Understanding
Public information should be made public. Public information refers to everything that explains our citizenship. Public means everything that we agree should be available to the body politic. Making information public is somewhat less generic. This public means presenting, designing...
Humanistic Virtues in Information Graphics
However unmoved, the news media cannot be seized as a scapegoat for the objectivity of information graphics proliferating the discipline of information design. Information graphics have traditionally upheld the role as a constructor of clarity in visual communication; where interpretation...
ACCENT Principles for the effectiveness of graphical display
"The essence of a graph is the clear communication of quantitative information. The ACCENT principles emphasize, or accent, six aspects which determine the effectiveness of a visual display for portraying data." Link:ACCENT Principles for the effectiveness of graphical display...
Design of Signage System
As applied to iconic wayfinding representations for public facilities, Internet navigation, Interface Design, etc. Link:Design of Signage System - Theory, Applications, and Resources...
How you can use Information Design
Information Design is a complicated field, integrating many different disciplines. That being said, at the most basic level, Information Design breaks down to simple common sense. Here are a few ways you can bring Information Design principles to your everyday...
Auditory Information Design
"Although there is a well developed practice and culture of movie sound, computer applications are a new challenge because of the types of information to be conveyed and the interactivity between the user and the sounds. This thesis develops an...
The Screen is Just Bad Paper
Hopefully this article will prompt some discussion as there are some really interesting tidbits of information. I am almost tempted to quote the entire article in fear of them removing it at some later date. Anyway, kudos to IA slash...
About charts and graphs
Part of a series in the AIGA design forum this article is another one of those convenient lists of "do's and don't's" for practicioners who don't want or don't have the time to dig deeper. Unfortunately I cannot link to...
Presenting Data and Information
"Below are my notes from this one-day class. Edward Tufte is one of the few very "rich" presenters I've encountered before -- there's no unnecessary repetition of content or other filler. I found myself really mentally involved with the class...
Measuring Cognitive Maps in Virtual Environments
“Cognitive maps are mental models of the relative locations and attributes of phenomena in spatial environments. Understanding how people form cognitive maps of virtual environments is vital to effective virtual world design. Unfortunately, such an understanding is hampered by the...
Organic Information Design
Benjamin Fry's Master's Thesis at MIT Media Lab. The abstract || Design techniques for static information are well understood, their descriptions and discourse thorough and well-evolved. But these techniques fail when dynamic information is considered. There is a space of...
Surveying the variety of ways we display introductions to longer articles...
I love coming across articles such as this that remind of the mistakes I am commiting and some different approaches to fixing the problem. For some reason I have neglected to thoroughly examine this important detail in a recent project....
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