Information/Instructional Design

What is Information/Instructional Design?
As only being newly introduced to the world of information and instructional design through a course unit, I am still coming to grips with the term and what it actually means and represents. However, through some of my own research I have undertaken, the notion of Information Design is starting to come to light.

Designer Nathan Shedroff has defined Information Design as; "a field and approach to designing clear, understandable communications by giving care to structure, context, and presentation of data and information. As a field, its principles relate to all communications products and experiences, regardless of medium (print, broadcast, digital, online, etc.). Information Design is, primarily, concerned with clarity (instead of simplicity) and understanding." - Nathan Shedroff.

So if someone were to design an effective form of Information Design they should create a clear, easily-readable and understandable solution. Most of these forms are seen every single day by every one of us. On commercial signage around shopping centres, road signs, internet navigation, mobile phone navigation, magazines, newspapers, even what I'm on right now Blogger has plenty of forms of Information Design present.

Information Design can be split into 3 categories;

Navigational

Instructional

Statistical

Each of these sub-categories are fairly self-explanatory;

Navigational is seen as any graphics that assist in the moving around or searching through a medium, whether it be the web, phone, magazine or print. Most commonly, your basic arrow would be an example here.

Click for an example.

Instructional is seen as any graphics that assist in effectively communicating instructions to a user. Things such as a "How-To" item or a user manual would be prone to containing these types of information graphics.

Click for an example.

Statistical information design is seen as any form of visual communication that takes data and transforms it into a clear, well-presented graphical format, such as a chart or graph.

Click for an example.

So this should start you off in terms of what Information and Instructional Design is in the most basic of form, but stay posted for updates in the near future to improve your understanding on the topic.

Also, here are a few extra links to sites you might find helpful on the subject;

http://www.informationdesign.org/

The MIT Press

Wikipedia - Information Design

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