From the first lecture Professor Pontis describes the purpose of information design is to ‘facilitate understanding’. It is important to understand with information design how our brains interpret information. It involves a process of selection, organisation and interpretation in which our brain can take short cuts and we connect to stored mental modes. Essentially information design involves a person looking at an information design example, successfully encoding it, which then leads to a happy user. This usually involves applying knowledge we already know.
Information design is how we make sense of the environment and work in a process of a person taking in the information, checking prior knowledge through working memory and then deciding whether to expand your model or start a new one. As stated before, information designs serve the purpose to illustrate, data, simplify complex information, comparing two or more things and raise awareness. The following are examples of information design with different deliverables which help serve their role.
The Coca Cola example can be related back to the ‘Graphics for Learning’ reading. From the images of each coca cola bottle, it helps present a timeline of the progression of the coca cola bottle with visual appeal. From the reading it is easy to say that visuals that depict relationships support deeper learning e.g. who/what,when,how,why etc hence the importance of building visual models. A point that ‘Graphics for Learning’ makes which I would like to bring into this example is that visual aids were said to minimise cognition load as a psychological function, essentially thinking less. This is shown in the example of Coca Cola through pictures being used to help with questions such as ‘who?’ with the picture of a man to relate to the Villager’s collection. This also helps to humanize this example of information design, thus making it more engaging.
Furthermore, the consistent colour scheme on theme with the brand and the simple white background also further help deliver effective information design.The use of shape groupings also help sort the information together more consistently and allow for our brains to ‘minimize cognitive load’ as started in the reading.
This example also does a good job of answering questions like ‘where?’ with the image of the house in the bubble above. A final point of the Coca Cola example I would like to point out which we learnt very early on in the class was the clear entry point of the design, through the coca cola bottle timeline image. From that then we diverge into second level and third level tiers of information which also help minimize cognitive load for the design.
Moving on to two different types of information design discussed in week 4. I would like to point out the importance of colour in our information designs. From looking at the two examples below, we can see how two examples of the same colour can be interpreted very differently, depending on culture interpretation or context.
From reading the language of colour I learnt that the main element of colour is that it can be used to link as well as split information. Furthermore it brought to my attention the culture of colour and how different colours have different meanings depending on the culture it originates from. I asked for the class how we communicate colours worldwide if red can mean love in one country, but death in another? What is the most effective way to design information for a world wide purpose with colour in mind considering the issue of its meaning differing in different cultures.
This issue can be seen in the next two examples. Yellow is often considered the brightest and most energizing of the warm colors. It’s associated with happiness and sunshine. But in other cultures, Yellow can also be associated with deceit and cowardice, though (calling someone yellow is calling them a coward).
In terms of the Marie Curie cancer article, yellow is used as a sign of hope, also emphasizing electrifying energy of fundraising. The colour yellow is also eye-catching. Looking specifically at the yellow and blue (both primary colours) they contrast with each other, allowing for maximum interpretation of the function. The animated pictograms to aid the listed ideas for fundraising help portray information clearly and effectively to the reader. The use of colour in this information design keeps it fun and ‘hopeful’.
The black and white picture of Marie Curie also puts a face to the name and makes the whole poster more personable. It is also used as an entry point and suggests this charity has been around for a while through use of dated pictures. This is all effectively communicated without actually stating it or reading anything.
Looking at another example of the colour yellow, I know that in India , yellow is the symbol of a farmer therefore in the poster below, the different shades of yellow are all relevant to the content of the poster.
In my personal opinion, I think this example of information design is the least well executed from my examples. This one has too much color which can be distracting and overwhelming to a user. Bright yellow is the most fatiguing colour so hurts the users eyes. Furthermore the writing in the colour white does not make it easy for a user to read. The poster does not inform the user of much about the agriculture issues, nor do the images show a struggling farmer. It does not depict or reduce the information well enough for the user to understand the purpose. Furthermore, the entry point is not extremely clear. I would say yes it is from the title, but then to follow on from that my eyes do not know where to look after that in order to understand the poster.
Finally, in terms of grid design vs no grid design discussed in week 4, until the Muller- Brockmann reading, I had never considered how much interaction I have had with the grid system on a day to day basis without realising. As humans we are attracted to linearity and alignment. From the ‘Coffee Facts’ example provided below, we can see clear use of a grid which in my opinion helps provide clarity and less overwhelming information.
Furthermore from Week 4, we learnt about typographics and how font size and bold effect will make information design more engaging. The title from coffee facts is underlined, allowing us to see a clear entry point, followed by a large bold statistic of 65% to attract our attention. The grid system separates each topic evenly and allows for individual points to be displayed effectively. Furthermore, the use of animation over normal photos allows for more creativity in our brain and makes the poster more informative. The use of the coffee bean animation is in my opinion quite misleading as it is unclear what the animation is without speaking English. I would need to pay closer attention to initially understand what this was about. However in other images, the use of a map to show ‘where’ coffee grows is helpful. All in all this information design fights for your attention with a lot of large capitalised fonts so it is hard to see each level and what information is most important. Some of the images correlate with the sub topic but overall I think the best factor of this information design is the grid system being used to provide some clarity and organization to this piece of information.
In conclusion, I believe with factors of each example I think that the Coca Cola information example is the best for facilitating understanding, which is the ultimate goal of information design. It has a clear topic, entry point, colour use, grid system and the images provided show progression through a timeline. It does not overwhelm the user and provides insightful effective information.
Design For Understanding 