Information Design is the organisation and presentation of data that allows the reader to understand a given message and process it as information. Information Design helps us to make sense of the vast amount of data which bombards us everyday. It helps us discover meanings and relationships between items or helps us focus on a specific viewpoint and just generally makes it easier and quicker for people to process the information that is being presented.
"...visual method of explaining information and data to help the user achieve a particular objective." (Carliner, 2002)
One of the interesting aspects observed during this course, is the different opinions on how many different ways there are to organize information. Richard Saul Wurman in his book, Information Anxiety, users the acronym LATCH to describe 5 different ways in which data can be organized. Location, Alphabet, Time, Category, Hierachy. Nathan Shedroff in A Unified Field Theory of Design, adds Continuum, Number and Randomness. He removes Hierachy and it seems to be replaced by Continuum. This leaves the reader a little confused on actually how many methods there are and indeed if there are others that perhaps have been left undefined.
But on a closer examination they are really both similar only on a few technical areas. Shedroff lists Numbers as separate from alphabet because numbers are "much more universal because they combine in different forms due to mathematical relationships." Nathan Shedroff highlights the Dewey Decimal System, used in libraries as an example because the books are assigned a number but they do not represent any magnitude value.
Richard Saul Wurman may have included numbers as a part of alphabet and not seen them as separate categories because they both follow a sequence of symbols that represent no order of value. The Dewey Decimal System example, through personal observation does also, on occasion, incorporate alphabet letters in addition to numbers when one is trying to find a book. Perhaps the category could be called Symbols (alphabet, numbers or any series of symbols understood by a given culture.) On the other hand you might feel they should be separate categories, it seems to be a matter of opinion and conjecture.
The other major difference was the inclusion of Randomness as a category by Shedroff.
"There may be other times when random organizations present a better experience than an orderly one..."
It seems to be extremely rare (unsure if personally have witnessed this category) to see this kind of organization of data because if Information Design is about bringing meaning to a given set of data, then what meaning can one derive except for the fact that there is no meaning, there are no meaningful relationships, it is all random? Is that a meaning in itself? Is it really just representing chaos because there is no order?
If anyone is reading this blog, it would be great to view your thoughts on this matter.
Wednesday, February 27, 2008
Interactive Design
During this first week, students were assigned a reading Information Interaction Design: A Unified Field Theory of Design by Nathan Shedroff, the text can also be found at www.nathan.com/thoughts/unified/index.html.
This resource is particularly helpful in the areas of Information, Interactive and Sensorial Design, all of which are related because the process is identical and they all share the same goal of communicating to the audience whatever medium that may be. The combination of these three disciplines Shedroff terms Information Interactive Design.
Because the topic of this blog is Interactive Design, much focus will be on this subject. Firstly what is Interaction Design? Essentially, Interactive Design has to do with experiences, (sometimes it is referred to as Experience Design). Shedroff points out that interaction design
"...is essentially story-creating and telling, is at once both an ancient art and a new technology. Media have always effected the telling of stories and the creation of experiences, but currently new media offers capabilities and opportunities not yet addressed in the history of interaction and performance." (Shedroff 1994)
One of the interesting aspects Shedroff provides is an insight into the performing arts and how we as designers can gain insight about interactivity from this industry. The performing arts is a guide to interactivity because it relies on the combination of script writing, storytelling, performance and many elements such as artificial lighting, set building, music all combine to create a spectacle that while the audience is usually passive, they feel involved in the experience of the story. The same applies to a person attending a movie in a cinema.
"Each of these disciplines is particularly concerned with the communication of varied stories and messages through the creation of interesting and wonderful experiences."
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This resource is particularly helpful in the areas of Information, Interactive and Sensorial Design, all of which are related because the process is identical and they all share the same goal of communicating to the audience whatever medium that may be. The combination of these three disciplines Shedroff terms Information Interactive Design.
Because the topic of this blog is Interactive Design, much focus will be on this subject. Firstly what is Interaction Design? Essentially, Interactive Design has to do with experiences, (sometimes it is referred to as Experience Design). Shedroff points out that interaction design
"...is essentially story-creating and telling, is at once both an ancient art and a new technology. Media have always effected the telling of stories and the creation of experiences, but currently new media offers capabilities and opportunities not yet addressed in the history of interaction and performance." (Shedroff 1994)
One of the interesting aspects Shedroff provides is an insight into the performing arts and how we as designers can gain insight about interactivity from this industry. The performing arts is a guide to interactivity because it relies on the combination of script writing, storytelling, performance and many elements such as artificial lighting, set building, music all combine to create a spectacle that while the audience is usually passive, they feel involved in the experience of the story. The same applies to a person attending a movie in a cinema.
"Each of these disciplines is particularly concerned with the communication of varied stories and messages through the creation of interesting and wonderful experiences."
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Web 2.0
In the first week of studying this subject (Interactive Design 1) students have been introduced to the world of interactive media and in particular, emphasis has been placed on the exponential growth in interactive websites since 2006, when 'Enterprise 2.0' was first announced.
If you are reading this blog, you are probably aware of what Web 2.0 is because this website is an example of user generated content which encourages participation (interaction) without the need to know how to construct a web page. Templates and options have been made available to the user who 'chooses' how they want their blog to appear visually (layout), what content they want to include (settings) and can link to other websites and blogs across the World Wide Web.
One could indeed blog on a static website but the innovation of Web 2.0 and interactive media allows a social community to develop who can, in this example, read each others blogs and opinions and comment because they are all networked within a central site.
Other examples of these interactive websites, that maybe familiar to you include Myspace, Facebook and YouTube.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
If you are reading this blog, you are probably aware of what Web 2.0 is because this website is an example of user generated content which encourages participation (interaction) without the need to know how to construct a web page. Templates and options have been made available to the user who 'chooses' how they want their blog to appear visually (layout), what content they want to include (settings) and can link to other websites and blogs across the World Wide Web.
One could indeed blog on a static website but the innovation of Web 2.0 and interactive media allows a social community to develop who can, in this example, read each others blogs and opinions and comment because they are all networked within a central site.
Other examples of these interactive websites, that maybe familiar to you include Myspace, Facebook and YouTube.
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