Design & Development - Information Design articles about information design, information architecture and Edward Tufte. Recommended Books
- Information Anxiety 2 (Wurman, 2001)
- Information Design (Wurman & Jacobson, 1999)
- Visual Explanations: Images and Quantities, Evidence and Narratives (Tufte, 1997)
- Information Visualization: Perception for Design (Ware, 2000)
That Darned Content
Webreference.com: This article will step you through a few of the techniques I have used or seen others use to spin gold from straw in Web pages. The differences between a highly effective page, and one that is hard to read, or downright ugly, is often very subtle. Organization is the key to great pages, no matter what challenges you face. Good planning, enhanced by a few little tricks and aids can help you create great pages. Whether you have too many photos, too much text, or a full basket of elements that have no business on the same page, you can create a page that looks good and is easy to read. (2001-09-16)Use Your Subhead
Content Exchange: Bad as it is in print media, lack of navigation guides in Web text is even worse. Too often, we land on a site only to find a page crammed from margin to margin with solid text, and not so much as a blank line between paragraphs. Even printing such text wouldn't help much. Whether we're writing long scrolling "archival" text, or screen-size chunks, we serve our readers poorly if we don't give them some way to grasp the whole document while making it easy to find and understand particular sections. (2001-08-19)The Art of Information Architecture
iBoost Journal: There are many factors in a quality Web site Design, development, creativity, writing, color balance, and organization are all contributors, but careful planning is what makes or breaks the site. The old adage 'It'll come out in the wash' rarely works in practice. Lack of planning usually results in unorganized material and plenty of headaches along the way. Information Architecture is the practice of designing the infrastructure of a Web site, specifically the navigation. (2001-08-05)Apply Usability Methodologies in Intranet Information Architecture
Intranet Journal: A user needs analysis is crucial to the user-centred design process. Identifying issues in the requirements phase can save companies up to 100 times over what it would cost the company to fix the same problems after the system has been delivered. Once completed, a UNA report will be the blue print from which the production team can work, ensuring that the stakeholders' intranet's goals are married to the needs of the end users. In the first article of this series, we described how our stakeholder analysis gave us an understanding for the organizational structure, and its internal and external communications systems and processes. (2001-08-05)Interview with Seth Gordon Information Architecture
Argus Center for Information Architecture: In a misguided effort to measure the effectiveness of an architecture, many researchers assess variables such as time on task (how long it takes a user to complete a given task) and error rate and recovery (the number of errors and how users recover). While these may be relevant in certain situations, like diffusing bombs or responding to 911 calls, I think they can be misleading when trying to measure the average user's experience on the Internet. I've traded in those tired metrics for two new ones: the frustration factor and user confidence of accuracy. (2001-07-22)Effective Alt Text
Frontend: "Good alt text can be a useful tool for enhancing the web interface. It provides supporting information, helping users gain an understanding of the structure web pages and an insight into the behaviour of key controls and interactive elements." (2001-07-15)Using Language to Persuade Web Audiences
Designers must treat language as an integral part of a site's design. This means approaching each word on a page with the same intensity as you would your programming code and interface design. To do this takes some planning, creativity, and skill. Writing for the Web involves being aware of your audience and what you intend to communicate. We must know our audience intimately, understand our intent clearly, and be constantly aware of the way writing is integrated into our designs. (2001-07-08)Error Message Guidelines
Established wisdom holds that good error messages are polite, precise, and constructive. The Web brings a few new guidelines: Make error messages clearly visible, reduce the work required to fix the problem, and educate users along the way. (2001-07-01)Brevity versus usability
IBM DeveloperWorks: The user interface is the primary channel of communication between software and users, and is basically textual in nature, so clear language is critical to usability. Unfortunately, this clarity is often sacrificed in an effort make messages unnecessarily brief. If you use language a bit more generously, often just by adding a well-chosen word or two, confusing or ambiguous messages can easily be made understandable. (2001-07-01)Blurbs: How to write them for web pages
Online Reading Room: On the web, a blurb is a line or short paragraph (20-50 words) that evaluates (or at least summarizes) what the reader will find at the other end of a link. A good blurb should inform, not tease. Usability testing will help you determine the best way to lay out your blurbs, but this document will help you write the content. (2001-07-01)Information Design Using Card Sorting
Two Step Design: This paper outlines a step-by-step approach to preparing and running card sorting sessions. Guidelines on how to analyse and make use of the results are also provided. What is written here is based upon our practical experience of using card sorting to design intranets and online documentation. Hopefully these tips will allow you to learn from our mistakes and discoveries. (2001-07-01)Designing Help Text
Frontend: For those biting the bullet and designing seperate help areas, obviously it is important to follow standard usability guidelines just as one would when designing the rest of a site or application. It can also be useful to follow these more specific guidelines. (2001-06-24)From plain English to global English
According to this article about one billion people use English as a foreign language. It provides specific advise on how to write for this audience. (2001-06-24)Need "Therapy" for Your "Information Pain"?
ACM Ubiquity: In interview with Louis Rosenfeld co-author of Information Architecture for the World Wide Web (O'Reilly). According to Rosenfield "You can test aspects or components of an information architecture. But you can't quantitatively evaluate the whole beast, save for some extremely narrow and focused situations. For example, you can test the relative speeds of both Land's End's and REI's search engines by looking up the same blue parka. But you can't measure the performance of the architecture itself. It's made of too many individual components that make up each site's architecture (including various browsable taxonomies, search functions, labeling schemes, navigational approaches and interface widgets). Users interact with many or all of these components as they look for information in a site, and it's impossible to ascertain their collective performance." (2001-06-17)Writing for a Web audience
To write well for the Web, we must adjust our writing to help readers who scan the page and skip back and forth among multiple sites. But there's more to it than that. In a survey about trust and the Web, John Rhodes found that solid, well-written, grammatically correct content is crucial to gaining the user's trust. He also found that freshness and frequent updates are critical factors. Here are 10 Web-writing tips designed to gain the trust of your readers and to help them scan and skip to their hearts' desire. (2001-06-03)Hyperchunks
In place of the hypertext, we have what might best be termed the "hyperchunk" - the succinct slice of high-quality information designed to be stored in a database, linked from all over, understood quickly and in relative isolation, and often acted upon within a few minutes. (2001-05-27)Interview with Vivian Bliss, Microsoft's Knowledge Management Analyst
Centralizing the creation and maintenance of an enterprise-wide information architecture is much worse than pushing a boulder up a hill. At least Sisyphus knew right away that he was beat, but today's intrepid IAs are naively signing up for multi-year tours of duty in a hell of organizational politics that would make Dilbert cringe. Vivian Bliss and her colleagues at Microsoft are pragmatic about these challenges, and have created the best model I've encountered so far for getting the cowboys and Borg to work from the same page. (2001-05-27)For Your Exformation ...
Content Exchange, Crawford Kilian: Exformation is short for "explicitly discarded information," the information you strip out of a message because you know your reader already has it. The more you share with your reader, the less you have to say. For Web writers, exformation is a great big problem. How much of our text assumes shared knowledge? How much do we need to spell out? And is our exformation the same as our readers'? (2001-04-29)Online Help - Too Much of a Good Thing?
STC Usability Newsletter: Our position is that users do not need every possible procedure in the online help. Furthermore, placing all procedures within the online help may potentially reduce its usability. Consequently, a new approach to the design of online help should be adopted that includes the information the user may really need. We suggest that such information is associated with usability problems of the system and that usability tests can identify the critically needed information. This information can then be implemented in a way that reflects the severity of the problem. (2001-04-29)EdwardTufte.com
This website describes Edward Tufte's books, one-day course, and artwork. Edward Tufte has written seven books, including Visual Explanations, Envisioning Information, The Visual Display of Quantitative Information, and Data Analysis for Politics and Policy. He writes, designs, and self-publishes his books on information design, which have received more than 40 awards for content and design. He is Professor Emeritus at Yale University, where he taught courses in statistical evidence, information design, and interface design. (2001-04-29)70 Ways To Handle Text-Intensive Web Sites
Web Review: Numerous articles and books are devoted to creating graphics, but relatively little attention is paid to the problems associated with formatting text-intensive Web sites, or sites whose content consists primarily of relatively long articles. Yet, most of what you see on the majority Web sites is HTML text! This article provides some ideas and guidelines for designing text intensive sites. (2001-03-04)Writing Effectively Online: How to Compose Hypertext
Alysson Troffer: My purpose: To help teachers of writing and their students quickly grasp hypertext concepts in order to write effectively online. The theory and practical tips offered here explain how to compose high-quality hypertext that readers will find easy to read and navigate. (2001-02-25)Looking for Metadata in All the Wrong Places
WebReference.com: "Controlled vocabularies and thesauri have huge value: not only can they improve how successful users are at searching and browsing, but they can also make it easier for content owners to manage their information. For example, tagging your records or documents becomes so much easier when you know that the preferred term to use is "cell phone" instead of "mobile phone." (2001-02-04)Why web paragraphs are different
Nua Knowledge Base: To make your documents efficient and attractive for online readers, you need to ensure that the structure of the writing—the way that sentences and paragraphs are arranged on the screen—is suitable for web reading. Among the most important elements of structure for online reading is paragraph length. (2001-02-04)Customer Experience: Clarity Is First Priority
WorkZ.com: "Site architecture should be planned with four questions in mind: What do I want my visitors to know? What do I want my visitors to feel? What do I want my visitors to do? Where do I want my visitors to go next?" (2001-02-04)Using Words, Words, Words to Set your Site Apart
The eCom Resource Center: Here's the lesson: Whether it's product copy, web content, or e-mail promotion, words are going to be your primary medium of exchange, your main currency of persuasion, and your direct channel for online branding. On the Internet, content is where it's at - and when your Flash intro expires, your language must have the power to back up your pyrotechnics. This means that your words have to grab attention. And let's be honest: if Internet users are making return visits to your site, it's not just because of your graphics. It's because you have sturdy, compelling content. (20001-01-28)Implementing Information Across Your Site
Web Review: "At a recent workshop, we asked one group of people to structure information for a restaurant that allows people to order pizza online. At the same time, a second group was asked to pretend that they were actually planning to order dinner using the site, and to put down all the information they would look for. When we compared notes after 15 minutes, we found that the group doing the information structuring had gone into great depths on issues like "positioning," "brand building," and "competitive strengths." The group that wanted to use the site had a lot more mundane questions like, "Can I pay the person who will deliver?" "Will there be free oregano and chili flakes?" "Do I need to give directions to my house?" and "Can I place an order for tomorrow?" The earlier group had also considered some of these questions, but in the hierarchy of their information, this wasn't top-drawer stuff. For the consumer, this formed the bulk of the critical information." (2001-01-28)Effective Web Writing
WebTechniques, Crawford Killian: Advise about writing for the web, including: "Don't be tender with your text, but be tender with visitors who read it. That means writing "use" instead of "utilize," which is identical in meaning but has two more syllables. It means writing "decided" instead of "made a decision." And cutting whole paragraphs of non-essential information. Every word and phrase should have to fight for its life." (2001-01014)Information Architecture and Personalization
This white paper demonstrates the use of information architecture components as a foundation for thinking about personalization. After defining the information architecture components, it describes a model that combines the components into a complete personalization system. This model could be used to guide your personalization system development methodology, evaluate a set of personalization systems, or merely to give you the terminology to help you communicate about personalization. (2001-01-01)Empirical Studies of Online Help
Hui-Fang Wen, University of Maryland: This paper examines major issues of designing online help system. A well designed online help system should bring relevant information to users when they need it and guide them through the interface just as a human teacher would. It helps users with a problem as efficiently as possible without requiring the users to study a topic in depth. Guidelines and recommendations about how to design such a good online help system will be provided in this paper (2000-12-10)Words: The Last, Best Way to Differentiate Yourself Online
ClickZ: There is a small irony here. At first sight, you might imagine that technology would make you look different. But it doesn't. The technology that is applied to web sites makes everyone the same. It's hard to really differentiate between one Flash intro and another, or one streaming email ad and another. Or even one shopping cart or search form and another. (2000-12-10)The Ethics of Information Architecture
Argus Center for Information Architecture: Are you aware that the practice of information architecture is riddled with powerful moral dilemmas? Do you realize that decisions about labeling and granularity can save or destroy lives? Have you been designing ethical information architectures? (2000-12-10)A Comparison of Still, Animated, or Nonillustrated On-Line Help
Susan M. Harrison, University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire: This report describes a study in which 176 undergraduates received on-line help instructions for completing seven computer-based tasks. Instructions were provided in either written or spoken form with or without still graphic or animated visuals. Results consistently revealed that visuals, either still graphic or animated, in the on-line help instructions enabled the users to significantly perform more tasks in less time and with fewer errors than did users who did not have visuals accompanying the on-line help instructions. (2000-12-10)Information Foraging
Xerox PARC, User Interface Research Group: Information foraging theory is an approach to the analysis of human activities involving information access technologies. It aims to provide an understanding of how strategies and technologies for information seeking, gathering, and consumption are adapted to the flux of information in the environment. Much of the work is inspired by optimal foraging theory in biology and anthropology, which analyzes the adaptive value of food-foraging strategies. The theory focuses analysis on how the user gains value from interaction and the cost of that interaction. Adaptive behaviors and technologies are ones that have superior value in relation to cost (e.g. time). We use the theory to understand human-computer interaction, and to develop new design and engineering models. (2000-11-26)Redesign The Data Dump
Business 2.0: "Information was once a sought-after and treasured commodity like a fine wine. Now, it's regarded more like crabgrass, something to be kept at bay. When Information Anxiety was published in 1989, the cry was: less data, more information. But more than a dozen years of exploding quantities of information have elevated us to a higher level. How can we find what we want and tune out the rest? " (2000-11-26)Without Metadata, Content Is Just Bits
Fortune: "I know this may sound obscure but, dear reader, I simply must tell you about metadata! Metadata presents the biggest challenge the tech industry faces in delivering the ubiquitous, ever present, networked future. Whether it's the seamless integration of data into your cell phone, downloading digital music at home or in your car, or getting your bank and brokerage house to cooperate online, it doesn't work without metadata. " (2000-11-26)Evaluation of On-line Help
Journal of Universal Computer Science: "This paper looks at a variety of on-line help systems and at guidelines for their design; and indentifies general problem-solving strategies which are important for the effectiveness and usability of on-line help. The lack of a suitable evaluation instrument is identified and a questionnaire to address this need is developed: the On-line Help Evaluation Checklist." (2000-11-19)The Sevensteps Newsletter: November 2000
The newsletter contains information about all aspects of creating online help systems. This edition includes articles on Mental Models, Defining User Groups, and Frequently Asked Question: How much does it cost to produce an online help system? (2000-11-19)Getting the Right Information for Your Site
Webreview.com: "You need to know each kind of person who will access the site. You then need to understand why they are coming here. This will tell you what information will be appreciated and what will be extraneous. Often a little research uncovers that there are actually many audiences that a site wants to target." (2000-11-12)Physical, Cognitive, and Affective: A Three-Part Framework for Information Design
Saul Carliner: "Somehow, the practice of design as appearance improving has replaced the concept of design as problem-solving, even though published definitions of document design suggest otherwise. Perhaps that’s because the source material is primarily a series of guidelines of dos and don’ts for technical communication products—a cookbook of sorts. Although few read the source material any more (the original Guidelines are out of print), technical communicators still focus on discrete issues, such as the most appropriate font color and size, and the most usable arrangement of information on the screen, as if a single answer served every context." (2000-11-05)How to Write for the Web
The Standard: "There are still way too many well-funded (over-funded?) Web sites where you have to read something three times to figure out what it means or guess where a link will take you. Where is that "The world is a virtual marketplace" link on the front page of IBM.com going? Can you tell the difference between the "power" search, "advanced" search and "raging" search advertised on the front page of AltaVista.com? Why can't people be clear?" (2000-11-05)The Art of Information Architecture
iBoost.com: "There are many factors in a quality Web site Design, development, creativity, writing, color balance, and organization are all contributors, but careful planning is what makes or breaks the site. The old adage 'It'll come out in the wash' rarely works in practice. Lack of planning usually results in unorganized material and plenty of headaches along the way." (2000-11-05)Information Architecture: Designing the User Experience
According to this article by Jennifer A. Vodvarka "Through Design Darwinism, the Web has taught us many lessons. It is quite unlike any other form of media. Simply reprinting brochures on the Web is not an effective way to communicate to customers anymore. People expect more from the Web and businesses with a Web presence. The message is simple: evolve or be left behind." (2000-10-22)
There is No Such Thing as Information Design
According to this article by Jeff Raskin "...the popular term, Information Design, is a misnomer. Information cannot be designed; what can be designed are the modes of transfer and the representations of information. This is inherent in the nature of information, and it is important for designers to keep the concepts of information and meaning distinct." (2000-10-15)
Information Architecture and Business Strategy
Business strategy and information architecture are closely inter-related. For most organizations, the days of slapping a web site on top of an existing business strategy are gone. Web sites, extranets, and intranets play key roles in defining relationships between a company and its customers, investors, suppliers, and employees. The structure and organization of these sites is critical to success. (2000-10-15)
Demonstrating the Effectiveness and Value of Technical Communication Products
According to this article by Saul Carliner: "To be effective in our efforts to demonstrate value, technical communicators must first distinguish between quality¾ meeting requirements¾ and value¾ the perception of how effectively a product or service meets needs. Then, we must systematically collect data that tracks perceptions of value and, by reporting it to clients, molds their perception of the value technical communicators add." (2000-10-15)Webnotes: Writing for the Web
This Web Reference article presents a series of tips on writing Web content. Some of these tips are based on usability studies conducted by various organizations. (2000-10-08)
Tufte:Information design’s magical curator
According to this Information Research Institute article: "Edward Tufte is the magical curator of information design. Following in the grand tradition of 19th century museum curators, his books are masterpieces of the exhibitor’s art. The exhibits are extracted from their daily contexts of use and beautifully displayed with his engaging and fascinating commentary. Tufte has given us another wonderful show and continues to stimulate a wide public interest in the information designers’ craft and achievement." (2000-10-08)Graphics and Web Design Based on Edward Tufte's Principles
This is an outline of Edward Tufte's pioneering work on the use of graphics to display quantitative information. It mainly consists of text and ideas taken from his three books on the subject. (2000-09-30)
Educating the Information Architect
The good news is that the job market for information architects is exploding. Searches on sites like Monster.com regularly turn up 200 to 300 postings for "information architects. The bad news is that there's no established educational degree program geared specifically to meet the needs of aspiring information architects." (2000-09-04)Edit-Work.com
Edit-Work.com's purpose is to help editors make their site's content work as effectively as possible, whether the site is thousands of pages or a dozen. The site provides information on creating web site style guides and editorial procedures, as well as other useful resources. (2000-08-20)
12 tips for bulleted lists
According to this article by Ron sheer "Bullets are for lists, and readers like them. The great advantage of bullets is that readers can see a list coming long before they get to it. They can see how information is structured even before reading it—how long the list is and how many items are in it. This takes some of the work out of reading, and for that reason bullets are especially welcome on websites. Easy as they look, there's a skill to creating bulleted lists. Here are a few things to keep in mind." (2000-08-20)Information architect makes the Web work
In this article J.D. Biersdorfer asks the questions: "Have you ever gone to a Web site to find a specific piece of information and found yourself falling through a series of pages while clicking around helplessly, trying to find what you want? Do you feel as if you have opened the door to the basement of your new house only to find that the architect forgot to design the staircase that leads to the lower level?" (2000-08-13)Core Competencies in Content Management
According to this article by Patricia Seybold; "We need to learn to think the way our customers think about our products and services and to encode all of our descriptive information so that it can be easily and dynamically sifted and sorted to help customers make decisions and solve problems." (2000-07-23)
Presentations from ASIS 2000 Conference on Information Architecture
The presenters at the American Society for Information Science included William Horton, Mark Hurst, Patrick Lynch and Louis Rosenfeld. (2000-07-15)
Getting from Concept to Reality
In this Journal of Electronic Publishing article, Chris Kartchner describes Content Management Systems. They are systems that "...allows content to be stored, retrieved, edited, updated, controlled, then output in a variety of ways such that the incremental cost of each update cycle and output production shrinks dramatically over time. CMS solutions involve the integration of database, workflow, and editorial tools. (2000-07-15)
How to Cut the Fluff
According to this Content Spotlight article by Amy Gahran "Fluff is content that's intended primarily to impress or persuade, rather than inform. Fluff attempts to impose the perspective of the Web site owner upon the audience — erhaps the most fundamental mistake that an organization's Web site can make. (2000-07-09)
Form Meets Function in Cyberspace
Effective communication on the World Wide Web involves more than just understanding how people read and navigate through electronic information. For information designer Karen McGrane, it also involves understanding how that information conveys a company's overall presence in cyberspace. (2000-07-09)Give Them Words, Not Pictures
In this ClickZ editorial, Nick Usborne contents that " When it comes to building relationships, you'll find that a well-chosen word or two is more powerful than a thousand pictures." (2000-06-11)
Your Online Audience:Who Do They Think They Are?
According to this article by Amy Gahran "Adopting the right perspective is one of the most challenging parts of online content work. No matter what you're trying to communicate, and to whom, you must always look at your content through the eyes of your intended audience." (2000-06-11)
Graphics and Web Design Based on Edward Tufte's Principles
This is an outline of Edward Tufte's pioneering work on the use of graphics to display quantitative information. It mainly consists of text and ideas taken from his three books on the subject along with some additional material of my own. (2000-05-15)Do You Have a Valid ID
Information design (ID) is the process of organizing content and presenting it in the most meaningful format for your particular audience. It isn't about creating attractive logos or strong brand messages, but rather about improving the clarity and functionality of a Web site. (2000-04-25)
Models, Processes, and Techniques for Information Design
This site contains articles written by Saul Carliner, Assistant Professor, Information Design Programs, Bentley College, Waltham, Massachusetts USA (2000-04-25)Language: The Ultimate User Interface
Why do we—as web-builders—overlook even the most basic aspects of language so frequently when we build our sites? Is language so transparent in our lives that we fail to recognize its importance? Do we even think about it at all? If we do, who manages the language in our sites? (2000-04-16)A Web Usability Guru on the Secrets of Strong Content
Brevity is the soul of wit, lingerie … and the successful Web page. Some tips on keeping eyes from roving. On the Internet, first content was king. Then community. Then commerce. Now content is making a comeback. But it looks different than its ink-on-paper predecessor. (2000-04-16)About Information Architecture
The main difference between information architecture and customer experience is the foundation of each. Customer experience is founded on empathy with, and understanding of, the customer. Information architecture, on the other hand, is based on an understanding of information. (2000-04-09)Information Design: Call to Action
But the truth is, companies are painfully short of actionable information, and their CIOs are not using information design practices to create it. In spite of the fact that IT leaders rate actionable information important for decision making—4.8 out of 5, on average—most are not on a track to get there. (2000-04-09)The Art of Information Architecture
There are many factors in a quality website. Design, development, creativity, writing, color balance, and organization are all contributors, but careful planning is what makes or breaks the site. The old adage 'It'll come out in the wash' rarely works in practice. Lack of planning usually results in unorganized material and plenty of headaches along the way. (2000-04-02)Beyond Software Manuals and Online Help: Interactive Help
The move from Microsoft WinHelp to the new Microsoft HTML Help format allows user instructions to be presented in the same window as the application. This offers technical authors some extraordinary opportunities to provide intelligent, predictive, interactive help without the user having to request it. In this paper, we will explore one of the first such interactive help systems (for the Archivist e-mail archiving software), and see where the technology is moving. (2000-04-02)Writing Web Documentation
This tutorial guides you through the three phases of developing procedural information for your Web audience: define the scope, develop the procedures, and design the online information. (via tremendo.com) (2000-03-19)Information Architecture
USABILITY IS THE PRIME consideration in the creation of a site’s information architecture. Information architecture concerns itself not only with the structure of text but with text-related tools that contribute to a site’s usability—navigation, searching, and browsing systems, labeling and indexing systems, and the words writers use in their copy. (2000-03-19)Rapid Navigation in Online Documents
The goal of "...this site is to make electronically delivered documents far easier and more practical and faster to work with, by expanding beyond the "help topics" design paradigm. This site covers information structuring; rapid navigation; and designing Help, Web pages, and documents. The audience for this site includes UI designers, technical writers, Web developers, Help authors, usability testers, and hypertext theorists. Information structuring spans the areas of online documents, online document viewers, hardcopy documents, and Web navigation design." (2000-02-06)An Interview with Louis Rosenfeld and Peter Morville
An interview with the authors of Information Architecture for the World Wide Web a book that "...helps you understand the foundations of the field: organizing, labeling, navigating, and searching information. The book also places information architecture within the broader context of Web-site development, from research to conceptual design to production; and it provides practical advice to help get you through that process." (2000-02-06)Writing for the Web - Jackob Nielsen Alertbox
Links to articles and studies about writing for the web and reading online. (2000-02-06)
There is No Such Thing as Information Design
"As a curmudgeon, I am delighted to point out that the popular term, Information Design, is a misnomer. Information cannot be designed; what can be designed are the modes of transfer and the representations of information. This is inherent in the nature of information, and it is important for designers to keep the concepts of information and meaning distinct." (2000-01-30)Writing for the Web
"When you're writing for the Internet, pretend you're giving your readers a Twinkie--keep your offering short and sweet, and symmetric." (2000-01-10)Make yourself understood
25 ways to make whatever you say clear and simple. Tip number 2 is: "Develop top-level summaries. Your content, once organized, may be too detailed for casual users or novices. Top-level summaries may be enough for them. Meanwhile, for expert users, summaries can link them directly to the details they are seeking." (2000-01-16)Information Mapping - Show Me
Visual Language - Global Communication for the 21st Century
Highly Recommended - This is an excellent exercise for demonstrating the clear advantages of structuring the presentation of information using the information mapping technique. (1999-12-27)
WebReview.com says "Visual Language—Global Communication for the 21st Century, is a valuable book both in style and content. Written in the "visual language" it describes, the book reads like a very dense graphic novel—it's full of ideas for your next design project ... and many beyond. While not written specifically for the web design audience, much of the information will be of value to developers of web sites that use graphical elements to enhance text." Read the review (1999-12-27)Be Succinct! (Writing for the Web)
Reading from computer screens is about 25% slower than reading from paper. Even users who don't know this human factors research usually say that they feel unpleasant when reading online text. As a result, people don't want to read a lot of text from computer screens: you should write 50% less text and not just 25% less since it's not only a matter of reading speed but also a matter of feeling good. (1999-12-27)What is an Information Architect?
"From my own experience, I would say that the practitioners are professionals, versed in every aspect of web design, adept communicators, and gifted visualizers - they are people who eat, sleep and dream web design and structure." (1999-12-20)Center for Information-Development Management.
'...this website is committed to providing a focused, expert, and progressive forum to support documentation, training, and customer service managers in creating high performance teams that produce effective and appropriate deliverables." (1999-12-12)Animation: Uses and Abuses
Sometimes, text or still images aren't the most efficient or effective way to communicate. When used with care, animation can be a powerful content tool that speaks to Web site visitors on a number of levels. However, when used gratuitously, or when the intent of the animation is solely to benefit the site's owner (rather than the audience), animation interferes with content. (1999-11-28)Online Support Systems: Tutorials, Documentation, and Help
This Adobe Acrobat file contains information about planning, designing, and testing tutorials, documentation, and help. (1999-09-18)Getting Tufte
According to the Mappa Mundi article, Edward Tufte "...believes that the task of information design is to make it easier for the information consumer to compare data relevant to a cause and effect process. Tufte teaches (and he is, most of all, a teacher) that we must “enforce visual comparisons” and “show causality”. The best information displays allow people to understand large and complex data sets, not just in terms of what the data is, but also in terms of the process it represents." (1999-09-18)Street Cred: Visualize Tufte
This a 1997 Wired News book review of Edward Tufte's Visual Explanations: Images and Quantities, Evidence and Narrative (1999-09-18)Writing for the Web
Design, Details, and Disinformation: An interview with Edward Tufte
This Netscape Netcenter page contains links to several articles and interviews about the art of writing web content. (1999-09-05)
This Amazon.com page contains the transcript of an 1996 interview with Edward Tufte. (Jul-07-97)Edward R. Tufte - Computer Literacy Bookshop Interview
This Computer Literacy Bookshops Inc. page contains the transcript of an 1995 interview with Edward Tufte. (Jul-07-97)Information Design Link Page
This page contains many links to web sites, articles and resources about information design. (Apr-18-99)The Data Artist
A Salon Magazine article about Edward Tufte. (Apr-18-99)
Tufte on Visualizing Information
This article by Eugene Kim reports on one-day course taught by Edward Tufte. According to the author, Tufte believes: "The most common user activity of a web site is to flee as quickly as possible." (Mar-13-99)