Information Design

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.

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.

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