Information design as principled action : making information accessible, relevant, understandable and usable

Information design empowers people to attain their goals. It is centred on users, based on evidence, and oriented to results. It contributes to a vast range of activities that people engage with every day, from simple things such as understanding phone bills or operating a washing machine, to more complex ones such as managing emergency response web based systems, controlling a power plant, or flying an airliner. Good quality information design facilitates these tasks. Experts with several decades of practice alongside younger designers report on research and design methods and present case studies in practice and education, discussing processes, audiences, objectives, and results. The twenty eight authors come from diverse fields of design practice, but also from the study of cognition and language, forming a volume that deals with theory, history, practice, and education. This book is for document designers and writers, for communication managers and computer programmers, for design educators and social scientists, for people that in their everyday professional activity are connected with the planning or crafting of communications aimed at informing or instructing. In business, government, or education we live constantly challenged by the volume of information flow. This book demonstrates how leaders in the field make information attractive, accessible, understandable, and usable.