Stephen P. Anderson and Travis Isaacs
Abstract
WARNING: This workshop will forever change how people respond to your presentations, designs and deliverables.
We organize complex information everyday— whether it’s designing interfaces or producing models to represent our ideas. We even use “non-visual” tools like spreadsheets to organize and share our thinking. But how good are we at making that complex information easy to understand and use? Preparing information so that it can be used by human beings with efficiency and effectiveness— that is the focus of information design, a broad and exploratory discipline that cuts across information architecture, graphic design, technical writing, and usability.
Over the last few years information design skills have become increasingly critical to anyone involved with user experience. Consider the following:
- Data visualizations are becoming more common
- The quality of interface design continues to improve
- Communicating clearly in our deliverables and presentations continues to be a critical issue
- Search engines and browsing tools are trending to more visual interfaces
- Information design problems (like voting ballots) are still with us!
- Companies are using information design to differentiate their services
And it’s not just the consumption of data— form design has also dramatically improved thanks to efforts by folks within the UX community. To support these trends, we need good information design skills.
But how, exactly, do you present information in a way that simplifies the complex, communicates powerfully, and actually delights people?
Based on a decade’s worth of personal (and public) projects involving information design (in one way or another), we’ve identified a set of 11 steps that we either explicitly or implicitly go through on most projects. This includes things like “defining nodes of information” or “use task-based language.” While our focus is mostly on basic information design applied to Web pages, document design, and application interface design, the steps we explain also apply to other forms of information design, like infographics, data visualization, and concept models. Additionally, we’ll share some of our favorite extreme information design ‘makeovers’, and comment on how each of the steps we outline was used in these projects.
Seminar/Workshop Details
Learning objectives
After attending this Seminar, attendees will understand how to:
- identify and group related information
- determine essential, redundant, non-essential, and unnecessary content
- create a visual hierarchy
- draw focus to the most important content
- use visuals to communicate information
- explore alternate ways of representing data
- design for dynamic data
- create a consistent visual language
How will the seminar/workshop be conducted?
The half-day seminar will be structured roughly like this:
90 mins Core presentation, introducing a series of 11 lessons that build on each other.
All participants receive a typical (bad) example of information design (in our first presentation, this was a flight itinerary sent from a major travel site). We pause at various point during the presentation to allow two person teams a few minutes to apply the lesson(s) we just reviewed.
30 mins Time to finalize and share with the larger group the ‘after’ version of the flight itinerary. Depending on size of the class, we’ll either give everyone a chance to present or place all ‘after results on the wall and let a few teams present.
30 mins Speakers share five before/after case studies
60-90 mins Break participants into groups of 3-4. Each group works together to redesign some piece of information. we will offer multiple selections (so people can apply skills learned to something they normally work on), but will insure that at least two teams are handed the same challenge (it’s critical to show that there isn’t necessarily one best way to represent data).
Core IA-related issues:
Specifically, the skills taught in this seminar can improve the overall quality of:
- Web Apps: Forms
- Web Apps: Tabular Data / Data Grids
- The Display of Search Results
- Business Intelligence Reports
- Web Sites (IA)
- Concept Models
- …and similar UX outputs.
Audiences
This is applicable to all factions of IA (and UX). Whether you create Web site, wireframes, presentations or excel spreadsheets, these skills have universal applicability. I would consider this akin to writing skills– these principles could help almost anyone in any position.
Speaker Details
Stephen P. Anderson is the VP of Design at Viewzi, where his group is focused on changing how people experience search results. He is passionate about elegant design, remarkable customer experiences, and managing maverick teams– topics he loves to write and speak about.
Prior to Viewzi, Stephen grew and led the user experience teams at both Sabre Travel Network and Bright Corner, a small creative and technology services company he cofounded in 2001. There he worked with a variety of businesses to create valuable online and offline customer experiences, with a special focus on custom business applications. Stephen has worked on Web 2.0-style applications with small startups as well as larger usability and information architecture projects for enterprise clients such as Nokia, Frito-Lay and Chesapeake Energy. A former high school English teacher, Stephen brings a love for language and cognitive learning theories to the design profession.
As time permits, Stephen enjoys sharing his thoughts at poetpainter.com.
Travis Isaacs is a designer who specializes in bridging the gap between visual & interaction design, information architecture, and web development. Depending on the day, you’ll either find him dreaming up big ideas with the design team, or head’s down writing code along side the developers. He currently serves as Director of Viewzer Experience at Viewzi.com where he strives to change the experience of searching for information. Travis has a proven track record of delighting management and making big things happen at major corporations like Sabre Travel Network and Travelocity.com, as well as at smaller companies like Radiotime.com and Readingglasses.com In his personal life, Travis is a new dad, an avid photographer, and writes about interaction design at travisisaacs.com.