1st Edition

Information Design Research and Practice

Edited By Alison Black, Paul Luna, Ole Lund, Sue Walker Copyright 2017
    766 Pages 314 Color Illustrations
    by Routledge

    Information Design provides citizens, business and government with a means of presenting and interacting with complex information. It embraces applications from wayfinding and map reading to forms design; from website and screen layout to instruction. Done well it can communicate across languages and cultures, convey complicated instructions, even change behaviours. Information Design offers an authoritative guide to this important multidisciplinary subject. The book weaves design theory and methods with case studies of professional practice from leading information designers across the world. The heavily illustrated text is rigorous yet readable and offers a single, must-have, reference to anyone interested in information design or any of its related disciplines such as interaction design and information architecture, information graphics, document design, universal design, service design, map-making and wayfinding.

    Part 1 Chapter 1. Early visualizations of historical time  Chapter 2. Images of time  Chapter 3. William Playfair and the invention of statistical graphs  Chapter 4. Ship navigation  Chapter 5. Technical and scientific illustration  Chapter 6. The lessons of Isotype for information design  Chapter 7. Marie Neurath: designing information books for young people  Chapter 8. Future, Fortune, and the graphic design of information  Chapter 9. Some documents for a history of information design  Chapter 10. Moral visualizations 

    Part 2 Chapter 11. Graphic literacies for a digital age  Chapter 12. Visual rhetoric in information design  Chapter  13. Multimodality and genre  Chapter 14. Interactive information graphics  Chapter 15. Social and cultural aspects of visual conventions in information  Chapter 16. Textual reading on paper and screens  Chapter 17. Applying science to design 

    Part 3 Chapter 18. Does my symbol sign work?  Chapter 19. Icons as carriers of information  Chapter 20. Warning design  Chapter 21. Diagrams  Chapter 22. Designing static and animated diagrams for modern learning materials  Chapter 23. Designing auditory alarms  Chapter 24. Design challenges in helping older adults use digital tablets  Chapter 25. On-screen colour contrast for visually impaired readers  Chapter 26. Contrast set labelling  Chapter 27. Gestalt principles  Chapter 28. Information design research methods  Chapter 29. Methods for evaluating information design  Chapter 30. Public information documents 

    Part 4 Chapter 31. Choosing type for information design  Chapter 32. Indexing and information design  Chapter 33. When to use numeric tables and why  Chapter 34. Wayfinding perspectives  Chapter 35. Designing for wayfinding  Chapter 36. The problem of ‘straight ahead’ signage  Chapter 37. Park at your peril  Chapter 38. Indoor digital wayfinding  Chapter 39. Visualizing storyworlds  Chapter 40.  Exhibitions for learning  Chapter 41. Form follows user follows form  Chapter 42. Information design & value  Chapter 43. The LUNAtic approach to information design  Chapter 44. Information design as a (r)evolutionary educational tool  Chapter 45. Design + medical collaboration  Chapter 46. Developing persuasive health campaign messages  Chapter 47. Information design in medicine package leaflets  Chapter 48. Using animation to help communication in e-PILs in Brazil  Chapter 49. Medical information design and its legislation   

    Biography

    Professor Alison Black is Professor of User-Centred Design and directs the Centre for Information Design Research. A psychologist by training she has always worked with designers, both in industry and academia. Her research focuses on public communication in health settings and on the presentation of weather and extreme events forecasting.

    Professor Paul Luna both researches and designs complex texts. He designed the last two editions of the Shorter Oxford English Dictionary, has written on the relationship between typography and lexicography, and has also published a study of the typography of Samuel Johnson's Dictionary. Paul is co-editor of the Department of Typography & Graphic Communication’s publication Typography Papers.

    Ole Lund is Associate Professor in the Department of Design at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology, and a former Programme Director for the MA Information Design at the University of Reading. He has a special interest in the history, theory and practice of typography, i.e. design for reading. 

    Professor Sue Walker is an academic with an interest in typography and language, the design of learning materials for young children, and information design in public services. She is a partner in the information design consultancy, Text Matters, and was one of the principal researchers on the AHRC-funded ’Isotype revisited’ project.

    The Department of Typography & Graphic Communication at University of Reading has an outstanding and international reputation for teaching and research in information design. Graduates of its undergraduate, masters and doctoral programmes have helped shape information design across the public and private sector, working in areas as diverse as overseas aid, through urban transport planning, to mobile phone interface design. The Department’s Centre for Information Design Research brings together expertise in writing, graphic design, interaction design and psychology, carrying out projects in partnership with users of information design, such as health providers, government agencies and the insurance industry. 

    "The collection is an exhaustive encyclopedia of information design, with much to offer a diverse array of audiences...Overall, most readers interested in information design should find something valuable within Information Design, whether that be as a general reference, a teaching guide, or a research guide."

    Guiseppe Getto,  faculty member at East Carolina University and President & Co-Founder of Content Garden, Inc.