What is Information Design?

 It's a bit difficult to pinpoint exactly what a definition of "information design" should be. And it has nothing to do with age because as has been noted by Robert Horn, at least since the days when Egyptian scribes sat in the marketplace writing "hieroglyphic letters, reports, memos, and proposals ..." information design has been around (Horn 15). The difficulty of cogently and easily defining information design has to do with the fact that it encompasses a lot of fields, some new (e.g. human-computer interaction specialist), some not (e.g. graphic design)(Baer 15). All the fields have many things in common, mainly their focus on clearly organizing data and user interface experience; however, their inherent differences hint at their isolation from one another.

Notwithstanding the many different fields that fall under the term information design, using their similarities as my jumping off point I can put forth the following definition: 

The artful and technical way of organizing data that can readily and effectively be understood and used by humans.

I make the differentiation between artistic design and technical communication because both are important in effective design, but they both don't always work well together. Horn made the current tension clear by dividing information designers into two general categories: the graphic designers (those concerned with the "gods of Style and Fashion") and the technical communicators (those focused on the "gods of Clarity, Precision, Legibility, Comprehensibility, and (often) Simplicity")(Horn 25). As is expected, Horn's graphic designers are solely focused with the aesthetic experience at the expense of clarity, and technical communicators communicate effectively but fail to make their data novel or interesting for users. The magic occurs when art and science meet to create something greater than the sum of its parts. 

Below I have included an example of infographics posted in US National Parks. Infographics are displays that use both visuals and words to convey a message (i.e. a tool that falls under the umbrella of information design)(Meirelles 11). Here the infographics' job is to communicate quickly and seamlessly the National Park Service's message, whether that be something as trivial as where to throw away trash to something as important as locating the nearest hospital. The job of the information designer is to make sense of all the boring data and only present that which is relevant in an informative-yet-interesting way.

Works Cited

Baer, Kim. Information Design Workbook. 2008. Rockport, 2009.

Horn, Robert E. "Information Design: Emergence of a New Profession." Information Design, edited by Robert Jacobson, The MIT Press, 2000, pp. 15-33.

Meirelles, Isabel. Design for Information. Rockport, 2013.