Information Design Notes, Ch. 8
This chapter focused it’s attention on environmental case studies, with specific details on wayfinding in public environments, such as parks, transportation centers, and major public spaces where information design plays a critical role for people. The first section in this chapter took a close look at the Los Angeles Metro System, and how it transformed from being a broken and convoluted method of transportation, to a clean, organized, and efficient way for people to move. One of the biggest changes implemented was the creation of and adherence to a structured system. Neil Sadler says: “Templates provide a structure to help people organize information. You’re saying ‘Don’t change the font. Think about the message instead.”
Sophisticated appreciation for the role design plays in communicating information, creating good customer experiences, and fostering good will.
Creating guidelines and structure allow for consistency throughout the design, which is especially crucial if the project is massive, like the Metro system. People can recognize and process information much faster if there’s common consistency throughout the whole city. Below are some examples of the current mapping and route information graphics taken from the Metro website.
Download High Res PDF of this Map
Spacial Design & Planning
There are fundamental questions that need to be addressed before any information design project can begin. Things like where does the person need to go? How do they find it? What do they do when they get there? Since Information Design is the act of organizing and displaying information, it comes with some sort of user action. This is especially true when you’re designing a space, as in an exhibit. In exhibition design, information becomes theater.
“Successful information design takes substantial amounts of information, shapes a story, and determines the best way to engage with audiences as they move through a space.”
As a designer, you have to see things in sequence. You have to see information as a narrative form. The best way to start an information design project is to determine the problems with the current system. This is an interesting idea, because we as a culture are obsessed with the idea of new. Sometimes redesigning something without a logical reason will be counter productive. Once it’s determined that something is inefficient or broken, you can then start asking why, and what can be done about it. Over complicating a project is another easy problem to get caught up in. Sometimes the simple answers are best.
People need a sense of overview first; they want to get a feeling of what’s going on before they drill down into a sequence. Good teachers have always known this.
- Paul Mijksenaar
In addition to a good sense of sequence, Mijksenaar believes effective information designers have to know how to build a bit of tension. He invokes the way Hitchcock directed his films, “You have to build up information to keep people’s interest so they stay attentive.”
In exhibition design, users can navigate the space in a variety of ways., so you can’t design a linear narrative., but people do need some orientation to the exhibitions ideas.
Color
Color is one of the most powerful design tools out there, especially considering information design. But color does have it’s limitations. Studies have shown that people can’t recall more than seven colors at a time, so this can be a problem in assigning hierarchies and meaning.
Designers often use color to simultaneously convey different things such as aesthetics, branding, and establishing categories. Because people have experienced color in a confusing way, they will often ignore it. Therefore, a great idea when organizing an information design project is to determine how many colors are needed and necessary. Basically, only apply color when there is a need for it. There are other ways to convey meaning, association, and hierarchy with things like iconography, scale, and other treatments.
Up Next
The final chapter is on experimental case studies. I will write my notes about the chapter, but I want to structure the post in more of a gallery oriented design, and just show some great examples of experimental information design that I’ve been collecting over the months.
