Many factors that determine the success of a design piece are unrelated to the formal aspects of design but have everything to do with the context in which the design is created. To create a more effective and smarter solution, designers must understand the internal business structure of the client's organization. It also helps to know more about client's history, client team, and the person who is the ultimate decision maker. To make sure the project runs effectively, even before project work begins, explain and outline the process, team, roles, and timeline.
A large part of the information design planning process centers on the audience. Before deciding on the purpose of a design, it is important to learn the audience needs and goals. Identify all the possible audiences and then prioritize the members of the audience that are most important. Understand the emotional and physical requirements of the audience; what emotional response needs to happen? What is the physical context in which the design will be viewed?
In projects where large amounts of contents need to be developed, such as in books or websites, content organization is critical to help maintain order throughout the life of a project. One of the simplest and most effective technique is using the alphanumeric device. This technique basically utilizes a numbering system and use it to organize and label content from day one throughout the long course of a complicated project.
Since information design mostly communicates its message through written word, it's important to ensure that the language is clear, concise, and meaningful to the readers. Plain language uses plain words economically, its sentence structure is tight, its tone is direct, and is visually appealing. Using plain language does not mean simplifying and reducing complex information, rather, it assures the orderly and clear presentation of complex information to make it as easy as possible to understand for the readers. Online texts must be designed to engage the users to click through to find more information.
Although working with a large amount of source materials is demanding, try to review and analyze carefully all the data you have. The more you know about your client, the better you can solve the design problem you have.
Real World Experience
- Every year, my school printed a year book that contains all the information about the events happened in the school during that academic year. The book was divided into five sections based on the five departments that existed in the school: kindergarten, elementary, junior high, senior high, and tourism vocational. I was once asked by the school to design this year book. So basically I had to combine the documents provided by the five different departments into one book. The problem was, each department had a different person who were responsible to collect the data, which means, I was presented with thousands of documents that were organized using five different systems. Even their naming conventions were all totally different. I spent a ridiculous amount of time just reorganizing the documents — and I was not even paid to do that. I then realized how a single systematic and consistent organizing system is crucial in handling information-dense project.
- I was once got a commission to design a booklet for a small business. During the process, my client sent me photographs that they wanted to use but the resolution was too small so I could not use them. I called the guy who sent me the files but he said that he didn't know about that and told me contact another person. But then the other person said that was not his responsibility and sent me to another person. Around ten calls later, somebody finally told me that they didn't have the original files of the photos because they hired a photographer to do all the photos. He said that he was busy and might be able to contact the photographer in the following week. I was annoyed and asked him the photographer's phone number. I called the photographer and got the proper files in about an hour.
Related URLs
- https://www.schwab.com/public/schwab/home/welcomep.html?cmsid=P-2655315&lvl1=home
The book talks about how using plain language is not simply removing complex information, but it rather assures the clear presentation of complex information so that the readers have the best possible chance of understanding it. This website and the majority of its content is a good example of this argument. Investing involves some complex terms and procedures. Charles Schwab's website, however, uses plain language and friendly tone to make the content easier to understand and seems more approachable by a larger audience without eliminating the complex information that it has to communicate.
- http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/eula/home.mspx
In contrast to the Charles Schwab website, this Microsoft Windows XP End-User License Agreement (EULA) is written using sophisticated language at a level where the majority of its audience can't understand. However, this is not only a problem with Microsoft. In fact, almost all EULA are written using this kind of language. EULAs are important just like what all of them say at the beginning, "IMPORTANT-READ CAREFULLY." But if the consumers have to read them, why do all of them look like they are not meant to be read? Is there any consumer who actually read this stuff?
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