The importance of information design (ID) as a discipline with much to loan other design disciplines -- especially those that deal with human-human and human-system communication -- was brought home to me by two events.
The first event is happening as I write: a passionate, even fierce conversation taking place online among the practitioners of information architecture (IA), a subset of ID that deals almost exclusively with Web design. (You can read a summary of the argument with numerous comments and links to other blogs on the IA website, Bokardo, “Thoughts on the Impending Death of Information Architecture.”) The IA practitioners tend to agree that the contours of that discipline, all wrapped up with computer interaction, are becoming confining, though they are at odds how to liberate themselves from these strictures: Change the name of the practice? Change the practice? Or give it up entirely for other pursuits?
For a decade, IA eclipsed ID, Web design being a lot more glamorous (and for a time, more lucrative) than designing mundane artifacts like signage or brochures (the ID legacy). Now ID is looking quite attractive as an overarching discipline absolutely relevant to IAs -- and other designers -- pushing the envelope of their professions.
The second event was receiving an unexpected but welcome invitation from Carla Spinella, an editor of InfoDesign, the journal of the Brazilian Society of Information Design (SBDI) to attend and keynote the Third Information Design International Conference 2007 taking place next year in Curitiba, in the south of Brazil, October 11-13. I presume the invitation honors the contributors to a book I edited, Information Design (MIT Press 2000), who together described the applications of information design principles to fields as varied as exhibition design, the design of learning methodologies, architectural wayfinding, interaction design, book design, media design, and about a dozen others. Information Design sold out and went to a second printing on the basis of audience expectations as much as what it delivered. The Brazilian conference's broad themes -- education, science and technology, cultural effects, etc. -- demonstrate the pervasive influence of ID everywhere in the world.
Two other conferences with long-established traditions complete next year's official ID trilogy. (There are many smaller events, of course. See the excellent InfoDesign website and news digest for a calendar.):
The Information Design Conference 2007 hosted by the Information Design Association in the UK takes place March 29-30, 2007, in Greenwich, London. “Our overall aim this year,” reports the IDA, the first national information design professional organization, “is to construct an eclectic event, particularly strong on interdisciplinary learning and practice. The purpose, as ever, is to share ideas about how to make information easier to understand, in such diverse fields as..
- Government and administration
- Healthcare and health promotion
- Technical instruction and user guides
- Reference and learning materials
- Transport information and wayfinding/showing
- Forms and transaction interfaces
- Financial and billing information
- Web and interface design
The IIID Vision Plus 12 Symposium, taking place in Schwarzenberg, Austria, July 5-7, 2007, ”Information Design -- Achieving Measurable Results.“ It's hosted by the International Institute for Information Design. The theme for Vision Plus 12 is ”measurement“: how can we measure and quantify the impact and results of informational communication? This has become a hot topic both in business and academia, a daunting challenge. Vision Plus 12 will explore this controversial question from all sides:
- How and to what extent can we measure the success of a given work?
- How do we quantify the role and impact of intangibles like design?
- What techniques and technologies can be used to get measurable results?
- How are information designers building the necessary metrics into their projects?
The IIID, headquartered in Vienna, is a nonprofit organization partnered with several national ID organizations (in the US, the AIGA). It's also the the driving force behind initiatives to establish an Information Design University under the auspices of UNESCO (similar to the Experience Design Institute championed on this blog). The IIID ID Summer Academy, in the Cape Verde Islands, in August 2007, has as its purposes ” defining the requirements of branding, communication, and related vocational education, enhancing sustainable tourism at the Cape Verde Islands.“
BOB JACOBSON is fascinated by the experience of experience. A planner and technologist, Bob has a Ph.D. in Urban Planning & Design from UCLA. He's been a policy researcher, technology CEO, science writer, and consultant. As a Fulbright Scholar, he studied cellular telephony's impacts on transborder communities in the Nordic Arctic Circle. Bob edited Information Design (MIT Press 2000) and is now writing a book on the theory and practice of creating edifying, transformative experiences.
PAULA THORNTON says, "Understanding human behavior (economics), optimizing interactions (design) and facilitating conversations (markets), are the means to achieve strategic differentiation. This is the focus of our discipline. It is not a 'nice to have'‚ and is not, like documentation once was, an afterthought. It is the means by which to start a strategic discussion and the means by which to drive a tactical initiative. All design should be evidence-based."
