&

Content
Complexity
Information Design
in Technical Communication
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 &
Content
Complexity
Information Design
in Technical Communication

Edited by

Michael J. Albers
University of Memphis

Beth Mazur
University of Baltimore
 The final camera copy for this work was provided by the editors.

Copyright © 2003 by Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, by photostat,
microform, retrieval system, or any other means, without prior written permission
of the publisher.

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This edition published 2013 by Routledge

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ISBN 0-8058-4141-5 (pbk. : alk. paper)

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
 Acknowledgments

Any anthology is obviously the work of many people who are well
deserving of thanks.
First there are our Erlbaum editors. Linda Bathgate, our acquisition
editor, helped us throughout the proposal submission process. Sondra
Guideman, our production editor, helped throughout the production
process. Thank you for your help! We’d also like to thank the proposal
reviewers that provided invaluable feedback on shaping the final focus
of the book.
Thank you especially to the authors who wrote the chapters of this
book—and journeyed with us through the stages from concept to fin-
ished book. Without them it would be a very thin volume!
We’d like to offer a special thanks to Karen Schriver for reviewing
the proposal and writing the foreword. Finally, many, many thanks to
the STC Information Design Special Interest Group, whose members
provided us with the original idea for this volume and ongoing support
in our quest to explore information design in the context of technical
communication.

Michael J. Albers

Beth Mazur

v
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 Contents

Foreword ix
Karen Schriver
Introduction 1
Michael J. Albers
Information Design in Motion 15
Beth Mazur
Physical, Cognitive, and Affective: A Three-Part Framework
for Information Design 39
Saul Carliner
Collaborative Processes and Politics in Complex
Information Design 59
David Sless
The Five Dimensions of Usability 81
Whitney Quesenbery
Applying Learning Theory to the Design of Web-Based
Instruction 103
Susan Feinberg, Margaret Murphy, John Duda
What Makes Up A Procedure? 129
Hans van der Meij, Peter Blijleven, Leanne Jansen
Visual Design Methods in Interactive Applications 187
Jean Vanderdonckt
Contextual Inquiry as a Method of Information Design 205
Karl L. Smart
Dynamic Usability: Designing Usefulness Into Systems for
Complex Tasks 233
Barbara Mirel

vii
viii Table of Contents
Complex Problem Solving and Content Analysis 263
Michael J. Albers
Applying Survey Research Methods to Gather Customer Data
and to Obtain User Feedback 285
Beverly B. Zimmerman, Maribeth C. Clarke
Single Sourcing and Information Design 307
Ann Rockley
Redesigning to Make Better Use of Screen Real Estate 337
Geoff Hart
Contributors 351

Author Index 355

Subject Index 363

 Foreword

Karen Schriver
KSA Document Design & Research, Inc.

Information designers bring together words and images in ways that

enable people to understand, take action, or make decisions. A good
information design helps people to use the content in ways that suit their
unique interests. Although information designers have long recognized
the importance of developing good content, much of the literature in the
field has focused on issues of graphic design and typography. This
volume broadens our perspective with new ideas about creating infor-
mation designs that speak to peoples’ needs through the design of
effective content in products familiar to technical communicators.
Since the 1990s, information designers have been preoccupied with
shaping content in order to reduce information overload. The authors
here challenge us to think strategically about content—its selection,
organization, and integration. They show that well designed content can
help people ferret out fact from fiction, main points from details, and
“must read” from “optional read” information. In addition, the authors
remind us that the content we generate not only communicates informa-
tion to people but helps to build relationships among people.
Throughout the book, a number of themes emerge. Perhaps the most
prominent is the need to hone our skills in analyzing the structure of
information more deliberately than we have in the past. For any given
information design task—whether a paper document, an online help
system, or a multimedia project—information designers need to identify
core (must have) information and distinguish this content from supple-
mental (nice to have) information. With a thorough understanding of the
structure, information designers can highlight the content distinctions
through careful design of text, graphics, photography, full-motion video,
typography, or sound.
ix
x Schriver
Although making these sorts of structural distinctions apparent for
readers has always proved challenging, the difficulties have increased as
the media and technologies for presenting information have evolved.
The authors here argue that information designers need to sharpen their
talents in making these distinctions visible, whatever technologies or
media they are using. For example, the design of information must
enable readers to distinguish between core and supplemental information
whether the message is delivered as any of the following:

• A paper artifact
• An online document or database (e.g., on the Web or on a
CD-ROM)
• A website with links to related information
• A document presented in telegraphic chunks on a very
small screen (e.g., a watch, a cellular phone, or a Palm Pilot)
• An online environment using technologies that intelligently
and dynamically adapt the content presented
• A document-like artifact generated dynamically on-the-fly
from a single-source database of online information

Because different media place different constraints on the amount

of information one can display, media differences pose significant
challenges both for designing good content and for making obvious
what content is available.
A related theme that emerges in this book is that information designers
need to be more critical about the nature of the content they present.
Simply attending to whether the content is clear is not enough. The
authors point out that too often readers are presented with simple, clear,
yet inappropriate information. For example, a user of a presentation
software program might call on a help system to tell her how to put page
numbers on a handout for members of her audience. If she searches the
help files and finds only information on paginating slides rather than
handouts, that content is useless even if well formed. Similarly, if a bank
customer checks his monthly statement for the interest rate on cash
advances and finds instead information about interest rates for a credit
card insurance plan, that information is useless.
The authors tell us that familiar phrases such as “easy-to-use” and
“easy-to-access” can be merely slogans if the content is inappropriate.
Information that can be retrieved in a few seconds and that looks “short
and snappy” can be deemed useless if the content is ambiguous, abstract,
leaves out critical detail, or is simply wrong. Unfortunately, many
organizations select and organize their content by default, that is,
according to their own development processes—creating content not by
Foreword xi
design, but by historical accident and accretion. Without detailed infor-
mation about their stakeholders’ expectations and needs for content,
organizations can produce artifacts that fail, even though they look nice
and read well. Work presented in this book tells us that we need to rethink
our ideas about content and about whose needs should take priority.
Of course, there are a variety of stakeholders for most information
designs. The authors here suggest that information designers refine their
methods for understanding the diversity among stakeholders—their
topic knowledge, experience, needs, wants, and motivations. Just whose
needs should take priority is not a simple matter. Although some stake-
holders will be inexperienced with the subject matter and will seek
introductory content about the topic, other people experienced in the
subject matter will be frustrated with a mere introduction. An approach
to designing content that is appropriate for someone with little knowl-
edge may be quite inadequate for someone with intermediate or expert
knowledge of the topic.
Most of the work in information design has not yet explored the
needs of people who possess high knowledge or experience in a domain.
In fact, many information designs seem to ignore stakeholders with
complex questions and ill-structured problems. People who seek answers
to complex questions often need to examine a sequence of information
artifacts en route to finding a solution. They may search for relevant
content across textual material, maps, tables, photographs, or arrays of
numerical data. For instance, a physician trying to understand the
data from clinical trials for competitive cancer drugs might consult
journal articles and websites in order to compare the data those sources
offer with what he may receive in the marketing literature from
pharmaceutical companies.
How best to orchestrate content across information artifacts to
facilitate high-level problem solving has rarely been studied. Researchers
need to address this issue, paying special attention to the ways that
people represent their problems when they turn to information designs.
With better knowledge of their stakeholders’ worlds, information
designers will be better positioned to imagine artifacts that will be more
responsive, more useful. The authors here argue that information design-
ers should take a closer look at the world of their stakeholders.
Some information designers would argue that they have always
helped stakeholders solve difficult problems, and in doing so, have made
a career out of making the complex clear. Yet often missing from the
information designer’s repertoire has been the ability to create designs
that enable people to embrace complexity and use it to their advantage.
Learning to make the complex both visible and useful represents a
significant challenge for the field.
xii Schriver
Equally important, information designers need to step back
from the glow of the screen to see that they are not so much designing
stand-alone information products as much as they are creating artifacts
that enable relationships among people. Information designers ought to
be concerned with the things that go on in the everyday world of people
engaging with communications at bank counters and help desks, in
cubicles and checkout counters, in the living room or the classroom.
Because information design is a kind of conversation, it is important that
members of the field think deeply about their writing and design. They
must take up the challenge of setting the tone for the conversation and
of deciding what to say and how to say it.
Information designers have had an abiding interest in creating
content that is helpful, useful, and truthful. Indeed, the stakes for good
content have always been high. Even so, our ideas about content have
been neither fully developed nor fully elaborated. The authors of this
volume extend what we know about shaping content, both visually and
verbally. They help us to see how the design of content influences both
peoples’ understanding of the subject matter and their understanding of
those doing the talking.
 Introduction

Michael J. Albers
University of Memphis

Getting a grip on information complexity

High-quality information design communicates information in a manner
appropriate and pertinent to a reader’s situational context. It must focus
on the reader and ensure that he or she can clearly extract the informa-
tion needed to accomplish the real-world goal which sent them searching
for information.
In its general sense, information design ranges from developing
maps and signage to web pages (Jacobson, 1999). Although in no way
attempting to limit the scope of information design, this book works
with information as it applies in technical communication, particularly as
practiced within the software industry.
As a discipline, information design has only recently gained visibil-
ity. It has emerged from a melting of various fields, primarily graphical
design, human factors, and technical communication. (This melting is
discussed later in this chapter.) The need for information design arises
because of the increasing complexity and volume of information that
people are expected to process. Tufte (1983) discussed this problem in his
first book, The Visual Display of Quantitative Information, and, if anything,
the problem has gotten worse with the deluge of information available
via the World Wide Web or corporate intranets. People simply cannot
efficiently sort through and process the amount of information they have
access to; information overload has become a major problem. To reach
the answer, they need content properly positioned within the problem’s
context and effectively assembled and presented.
1
2 Albers

A definition of information design

It is ironic that defining information design is a major problem facing the
information design discipline. Any article or book on information design
will have a definition in it, ranging from being synonymous with graphic
design to web design to technical communication, and all variations
between. The definitions never match. In a special issue of Technical
Communication (May, 2000), a section on information design contained at
least three definitions in the introduction and commentaries alone.
But what is information design? The Vienna-based International
Institute of Information Design (2000) admits that information design

can be hard to define, because it is an interdisciplinary approach

which combines skills in graphic design, writing and editing,
illustration, and human factors. Information designers seek to
combine skills in these fields to make complex information easier
to understand.

Before considering various definitions of information design, I must

solidly reject some definitions I have found. Actually, no one has explic-
itly defined information design in these terms, rather the definition was
apparent from context of their usage. Information design is not equiva-
lent to or a synonym for:

• Graphical design
• Web design
• Information architecture

Various leading figures—who come from a language-based back-

ground in information design—have placed their own definitions on the
table. But as you can see reading these definitions, they come in radically
different flavors, although they contain similar elements. (For more
definitions of information design, see Carliner, in this volume.)

Janice Redish
Information design is what we do to develop a document (or com-
munication) that works for its users. Working for its users means that
the people who must or want to use the information can:

• find what they need,

• understand what they find, and
• use what they understand appropriately.
Introduction 3
Conrad Taylor
One may be a professional writer or illustrator or designer, or combine
these into the profession of technical communicator; but I (somewhat
controversially) don’t regard information design as a profession. I see
it more as a stance that one takes, like a political or moral stance.
Whether we create software manuals or street signs or schoolbooks, by
aligning ourselves with the aspirations of information design, we are
making a promise to ourselves and each other to improve the quality
of communication, respecting and improving the lives of our fellows.

Information Design Journal

Information design is the art and the science of presenting informa-
tion so that it is understandable and easy to use: effective, efficient
and attractive.

Karen Schriver
Document design is a field concerned with creating texts (broadly
defined) that integrate words and pictures in ways that help people
to achieve their specific goals for using texts at home, school, or work.

Saul Carliner (chap. 2, this volume)

[I]nformation design may be better defined as:

Preparing communication products so that they achieve the

performance objectives established for them. This involves:

1. Analyzing communication problems.

2. Establishing performance objectives that, when achieved, address
these objectives.
3. Developing a blueprint for a communication effort to address
those objectives.
4. Developing the components of the planned communication effort
solution.
5. Evaluating the ultimate effectiveness of the effort.

A major reason for the varying definitions comes from the immatu-
rity of the information design discipline and the bias of each person that
reflects the previous experiences. Right now, information design can
handle and should have a wide range of definitions that help spur debate
and inquiry into exactly what the field does and how it should focus
itself. As information design matures into its own field, an overall agreed-
upon definition will emerge; one that will probably take elements from
each of the foregoing definitions but will integrate them in a unique way.
4 Albers
The journals, research agenda, and expected practitioner actions all
contribute to a discipline definition and expectations. The field has one
major English language journal, Information Design Journal, but much of
the research appears in the journals of the underlying disciplines and
reflects each discipline’s biases. There are several universities who have
created a program in information design and I expect many more
programs to appear over the next few years. All these forces, acting
together over the next several years, will yield a much stronger and
concise definition of information design.

Positioning information design

This section tries to place information design within the various disci-
plines from which it draws, as an attempt to show exactly how it fits into
the “big picture.” Although information design lacks an agreed-upon
definition, there is less debate on which underlying disciplines feed into
it. Information design “draws on many research disciplines and many
fields of practice, including anthropology and ethnography, architecture,
graphic design, human factors and cognitive psychology, instructional
design and instructional technology, linguistics, organizational psychol-
ogy, rhetoric, typography, and usability” (Redish, 1999). Of course, the
proportions which each underlying discipline contributes varies widely
and tends to be apparent in any individual definition.
My attempt, shown in Figure I.1, portrays information design as
drawing primarily from the fields of technical communication, visual
(graphic) language, and human factors. To restate, information design is
not synonymous with any one of these three areas. But rather it is cur-
rently developing into its own unique discipline which draws on all three.

Visual design
Although some people consider information design as equivalent to
graphic design, this book takes a much broader view. Yes, high-quality
graphic design is an important part of good information design. But
information design is not synonymous with graphic design or even the
field of information graphics (see e.g., Understanding USA, Wurman,
2000). While useful, these graphics must be carefully constructed to
ensure their fit with the rest of the design (Tufte, 1983). Whereas many
graphic designers are excellent at developing these graphics, far too
often, they come at a project with the idea of doing unique, cutting edge
artwork, regardless of the communication requirements of the project.
Information design communicates content to the reader. Information
designers bring together prose, graphics, and typography and make
them work in unison to achieve the desired effect. Information design
Introduction 5

TECHNICAL
COMMUNICATION

INFORMATION
DESIGN

HUMAN VISUAL
FACTORS DESIGN

Figure I.1. Information Design as the Intersection of Different Disci-

plines. Within the area of overlap, a gestalt of knowledge is occur-
ring as the information design discipline grows. A discipline that will
someday be viewed as independent of its foundational disciplines.

encompasses any and all ways of clearly and effectively communicating

a set of information to a reader (Horton, 1990). That might include the
layout of a text-only report, the development of the user interaction for a
software application, or the design of a flashy four-color report for
prospective clients. The importance of the appropriate visual presenta-
tion cannot be overemphasized. It drives both the reader’s emotional
response and ease of manipulating the information (Carliner, 2000).

Human factors
Here I consider human factors and usability as roughly equivalent terms.
The need to consider the user through the various user-centered design
methods and to test that the intended responses actually happen are vital
to quality information design.
The user experience is ultimately what will determine the success or
failure of any information design project. User experience includes all
points of interaction a user has with the information. User experience
with printed documents is defined by factors such as, the paper and
print quality, volume of information (2-inch thick report vs. a 4-page
summary), and graphics. User experience on the web is defined by
factors such as, navigation, structure, content, layout, graphics, flow, and
linking strategies (Nielsen, 2000).
6 Albers
Ensuring that the design fits the specifications and provides the
proper user experience is what human factors does. Without an adequate
plan for ensuring usability, there is no guarantee that the design is
anything but a perfection of communication within the designer’s mind.
Effective human factors is much more than testing various designs to
find which one gives the best time to find a result. In creating the optimal
user experience, the information designer must also consider the social
context of the user (Odell & Goswami, 1985). Often, creating an effective
user experience has more to do with defining who your audience is, what
they’re there for, and what social, political, cultural and other conventions
they are familiar with, than it is with providing a technological method of
presenting information (Hackos & Redish, 1998).

Technical communication
In the final analysis, information design requires content. Although
much of the information design process operates above the level of the
text itself, in the final analysis, the text content must mesh with the
design (Schriver, 1997). Any design lives and dies by the content it has to
impart. One example can be seen in the criticism of the use of Flash for
current web sites; the flashiness overpowers the information. Once a
reader gets past the “cool factor,” nothing is left.
The technical communicator’s skills for transforming the informa-
tion from its source to the proper level for the audience underlie commu-
nicating information. This skill set will always be needed to support the
work of the information designer. As part of this skill set, technical
communication brings the methods of aiding information communica-
tion, such as headings, text and graphic integration, and page layout.
Along with writing and editing skills, technical communication also
provides the methodologies needed to define the user’s needs and goals,
and task and audience analysis.

Difficulties of good information design

Mark Twain declared that it takes 3 weeks to prepare a good impromptu
speech. Good information design must be like a good impromptu
speech. Like Twain’s speech, much hard work goes into the effortless
flow of information from source to reader. The design must make
everything clear and functional without distracting from the information
being conveyed. The hard part for the information designer is making
the design disappear. Rather than being something the reader focuses on,
the design must carry the information to the reader in a clear manner
while remaining out of sight. As the reader’s attention to the design itself
increases, the amount of content conveyed to the reader decreases.
Introduction 7
The interesting thing about good design is that most people don’t
realize how hard it is. Or, worse, they equate it with slapping on some
color and a few graphics. Every information designer has had at least
one client say, “This project doesn’t really require much design. Just
make it clear!” Unfortunately, projects described like this usually do
require a lot of design work; a design, which when successful, is never
noticed. And when it fails, the entire project fails. In a good design,
readers can effortlessly extract the information they need without being
conscious of how they gain the information. Consider your past experi-
ences finding information on large web sites. Some sites have easy to
understand text and structure which quickly lead you to the information
you want, whereas other sites submerge you in a maze of confusing links
leading from one chunk of minimal information to another. Interestingly,
both sites might have comparable color schemes and pleasing graphics.
The difference exists in how the site portrayed its content.
Although much of the information design literature focuses on
graphic design or human–computer interaction issues, information
design should never be considered the practice of web navigation,
creating graphics, picking fonts, laying out a page, or using particular
tools. Rather, it must be considered the practice of enabling a reader to
obtain knowledge. Many different elements come into play for an
information designer, but knowing about each of them does not consti-
tute being an information designer any more than knowing how to use
hand and power tools constitutes knowing how to build a house. The
tool knowledge may exist, but does the person possess the contextual
knowledge of how to properly apply them to the situation?
Rather than tool knowledge, the essence of being a good information
designer is one of understanding the following:

• which questions to ask a client, subject matter expert, and user

• how to listen to the answers
• how to differentiate between the client’s wants and needs
• how to understand the information needs within the situational
context
• how to translate the needs into results

At times, buried beneath the details of a design project, it can be hard

for the designer to remember that someone is going to be looking at the
information product and using it for a specific purpose. People have a
goal in mind when they use information; the information designer must
ensure they can reach that goal with minimal problems.
When working on a design, information designers must avoid their
own affinities, prejudices, and jargon, while developing a design which
8 Albers
works given the client’s needs, beliefs, desires, and behaviors. It is very
easy to fall into a trap of creating a design that makes perfect sense to an
“insider” but makes no sense to anyone else. Situation comedies thrive
on plot twists caused by characters misinterpreting (overhearing)
language that made perfect sense in the context of the original conversa-
tion. In the same way, an information designer must ensure the design
does not introduce any confusing twists.
Multiple times in the previous paragraphs I’ve used the word
information. Methods of presenting information to a reader is what this
book is about. Reread the initial paragraph of this chapter and notice the
focus is on communicating information. The media is not the concern. As I
write, web sites using Flash and Shockwave are appearing all over the
World Wide Web and getting slammed in the various usability and
information design mailing lists. Unfortunately, these sites often forget
(or don’t know) that they have a message to deliver and instead are little
more than a multimedia production of special effects that leaves the
reader dazed and fails to deliver a coherent message. Dazed readers
suffering from information overload should never be the goal of a
design. Using fancy technology can be highly seductive and fun for the
designer, but not necessarily the best for the reader. Communicating
information to the reader must always remain the focus. In the poorly
designed web sites, Flash or otherwise, I often wonder if the designers
ever attempted to understand why and how people would be using the
site or if the designers just took a pile of content stuff and created some-
thing that contained all of it.
Good information designers do not start with a six screen web-based
design and then figure out what information to fit into it and who the
audience will be. Nor do they start at the top of the menu structure and
worry about how to create a design to communicate something about
File-New, then File-Open, and so on. Rather, they start with understand-
ing the information needs of the audience and what data is available,
then decide if paper, web-based, or a loudspeaker is the best method of
communicating that information. The medium used to communicate the
message should not be chosen until the information needs of the audi-
ence are defined.
In connecting information design to context, I’ll go so far as to
paraphrase Norman’s claim that “to the user, the interface is the system”
and rephrase it as “to the user, the information content is the system.”
Unless that information is properly designed, displayed, and can be
manipulated for interpretation, the information (and consequently, the
system) is a failure, period. Hopefully, this book will provide a vital
contribution to helping to design systems that contain information that is
properly designed and displayed.
Introduction 9

Overview of the chapters

Information Design in Motion—Beth Mazur
Whereas the other chapters look at the present or future states of infor-
mation design, Mazur looks at its history, one which extends much
farther back than the past 20 years. The chapter examines information
design from both a historical and speculative perspective, describing a
range of potential information design products, not just information-rich
graphics (of which Minard’s graphic of Napoleon’s march to Moscow is
perhaps the most famous example) and looks at some of the conversations
that have been occupying today’s information designers.

Physical, Cognitive, and Affective: A Three-Part Framework for

Information Design—Saul Carliner
This chapter, the only reprint of the volume, is an article printed in
Technical Communication (Winter 2000) which should become one of the
classic articles in information design.
Carliner first explores limitations with the prevailing concept of
document design and then offers a definition of information design. But
more than simply another definition, the article develops that definition
into a framework meant to broaden the perspective of information. That
framework describes the three types of design activities involved in
technical communication: physical design, cognitive design, and affective.
Finally, he considers the strengths and limitations of this framework.

Collaborative Processes and Politics in Complex Information Design—

David Sless
David Sless draws on his experience at the Communication Research
Institute of Australia (CRIA) to provide a description of both the design
methods and some short case studies. He focuses on what he has long
called collaborative design methods or, the more recent term, user-
focused design methods. After a discussion on the stages of the collabo-
rative information design used at the CRIA, he discusses how following
these stages helps to ensure that the real users are represented in the
design. The case studies focus, not on the design process itself, but on
examining the problems and political factors which have influenced
various projects and how these factors can seriously impede the develop-
ment of an effective design.

The Five Dimensions of Usability—Whitney Quesenbery

In common parlance, usability is often equated with ease of use, a
satisfyingly simple reduction to focus on the user’s interaction with the
10 Albers
product. This focus concentrates on user actions toward a goal. In this
context, it is understandable that the role of information design in
enhancing usability has been obscured. Quesenbery identifies a five-
dimensional framework for connecting the usability to the user experi-
ence, which taken together, can both describe an experience and serve as
a guide for design. By understanding the users, their goals, and context
of use, the relative importance of each dimension can be determined.
Part of the chapter explores how these five dimensions come into play in
this informational world, where the content must carry much of the
burden of creating a usable experience.

Applying Learning Theory to the Design of Web-Based Instruction—

Susan Feinberg, Margaret Murphy, and John Duda
Feinberg, Murphy, and Duda report on a study in the design of a web-
based instructional module as part of an interdisciplinary team project.
The team’s objective was to apply cognitive load theory to the design of
web-based instruction and user test the product. This chapter describes
cognitive load theory as it applies to the design of effective instruction. It
also presents guidelines for the effective uses of multimedia and graphi-
cal user interfaces, especially as they inhibit learning and impose unnec-
essary cognitive demand on the learner.

What Makes Up a Procedure—Hans van der Meij, Peter Blijleven, and

Leanne Jansen
The key part of any manual is, of course, the presence of information that
supports the user’s actions. Over and over again, research indicates that
users are predominantly—but not exclusively—interested in this type of
information, as opposed to declarative or background information.
Going beyond the numerous style sheets and extensive discussions on
how to present procedures, the authors undertake a systematic study to
analyze and describe procedures as they appear in (a broad sample of
more than 100 manuals) technical documentation. They then connect
the analysis with both the theory and practice of instruction writing.

Visual Design Methods in Interactive Applications—Jean Vanderdonckt

Vanderdonckt illustrates how visual design techniques can serve for
laying out information items and interactive objects in user interfaces of
interactive multimedia applications. These objects are generally known
and designed for their great user feedback and interaction through
simple interaction objects (e.g., list boxes, radio buttons, push buttons)
and interactive objects (e.g., text, image, graphic animation, picture,
video motion). Thirty pairs of visual techniques are introduced by defining
their opposites on a continuum ranging from harmony to contrast.
Introduction 11
Contextual Inquiry as a Method of Information Design—Karl Smart
The purpose of this chapter is twofold: (1) to demonstrate an information
design method (contextual inquiry) as it applies to documentation
design through a case study and (2) to report on the results of the contex-
tual design case study, outlining insights learned about users and
showing how contextual data can inform documentation design deci-
sions. The chapter begins with a discussion of the contextual design
methodology, outlining the development team’s organization and how
they determined their research focus. Smart shows how the team gath-
ered and interpreted user data and describes the process of creating an
affinity diagram and consolidated work models.

Dynamic Usability: Designing Usefulness Into Systems for Complex

Tasks—Barbara Mirel
Systems that support users’ complex tasks and problem-solving have
unique demands in terms of presenting users with the right information
in the right design at the right time. These systems for complex tasks and
problems must be adaptable.
This chapter proposes a conceptual framework for conducting the
usability and user experience inquiries that are needed for first defining
and then building usefulness into systems for complex tasks from the
start. It then identifies the applied effects of these dynamic usability
inquiries, particularly stressing the ways in which findings need to shape
decisions about system architecture and scope. Next the chapter analyzes
how building usefulness into architecture and scope ultimately impacts
the information design that users see in interactive interfaces and help
systems. It concludes by addressing the political obstacles that com-
monly challenge usability and information designers in these efforts to
attain dynamic usability.

Complex Problem Solving and Context Analysis—Michael J. Albers

This chapter connects complex problem-solving research with situation
awareness research to define a method of developing web-based knowl-
edge management designs which assist the user in solving complex
problems. In effective design for complex problem solving, the focus
must be on providing the appropriate content for the user’s real-world
goals and information needs. Thus, the process of supporting complex
problems is to help the users (1) identify the important elements of the
situation, (2) identify the relationships between the elements, and (3)
identify the information required to ensure the decision is resulting in
the desired response.
Content analysis, developed in this chapter, provides a framework
for ensuring that the information within a system can answer the above
12 Albers
criteria. It also ensures that the designer has enough situational knowl-
edge to present them in a manner that fits Marchionini’s three dimen-
sions of information: specific to the situation, in the proper quantity, and
presented in a timely manner.

Applying Survey Research Methods to Gather Customer Data and to

Obtain User Feedback—Beverly Zimmerman and Maribeth C. Clarke
Software documentation writers frequently have to gather information
about their customers or obtain feedback about their documentation.
Much of this information gathering and usability testing is based on a
written or verbal question-and-answer process that results in answers
that are used to measure the quality of the software’s documentation. It
is important, therefore, for documentation writers to understand how to
create reliable and valid measures. This chapter reviews recent work in
survey research and summarizes the principles documentation writers
should know to gather usable data about software users and to create
effective measures of their documentation.

Single Sourcing and Information Design—Ann Rockley

People often have to create documents for different audiences and for
different media (e.g. web, print). However, because timelines and budgets
for developing information are often tight, we need more efficient ways to
develop information. Single sourcing is a method that can address all these
needs. Single sourcing enables you to create information for multiple users
with multiple needs and build customized documents “on-the-fly.”
Although single sourcing does take more up-front planning, it can signifi-
cantly decrease costs and development times once implemented. This
chapter describes single sourcing, its benefits and costs, and provides a
clear process for developing effective single source materials.

Redesigning to Make Better Use of Screen Real Estate—Geoff Hart

Developers often ask writers to help them fit all the necessary text into a
dialog box or other component of the user interface. One common
request is to reduce the labels of the interface elements to no more than
“two or three words.” This chapter proposes an iterative strategy for
analyzing the problem, and presents two case studies that demonstrate
application of the principles. Careful reexamination of relationships
between elements of the information and redundancy in how those
elements are presented, combined with knowledge of the sequence users
will follow to actually use the information, often reveals simple solutions
for resolving the problem of limited space.
Introduction 13

References
Carliner, S. (2000, May). Document, information, and communication design.
Society for Technical Communication Annual Conference. Orlando, FL.
Hackos, J., & Redish, J. (1998). User and task analysis for interface design.
New York: Wiley.
Horton, W. (1990). Designing and writing on-line documentation. New York:
Wiley.
International Institute of Information Design. (2000, November 26).
members.magnet.at/simlinger-iiid/English-2.html
Information Design Journal. (2000, November 26).
www.benjamins.nl/jbp/journals/Idj_info.html
Jacobson, R. (Ed.). (1999). Information design. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Norman, D. (1986). Cognitive engineering. User centered system design:
new perspectives on human-computer interaction (pp. 33-62). D. Norman
& S. Draper. (Eds.). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Nielsen, J. (2000, December 4). Alertbox. www.useit.com/alertbox
Odell, L., & Goswami, D. (1985). Writing in nonacademic settings. New
York: Guilford Press.
Redish, J. (1999). What is information design. Technical Communication
47(2), 163-166.
Schriver, K. (1997). Dynamics of document design. New York: Wiley.
Taylor, C. (1999). Information design: A European perspective. Technical
Communication 47(2), 167-168.
Tufte, E. (1983). The visual display of quantitative information. Cheshire, CT:
Graphics Press.
Wurman, R. S. (1989). Information Anxiety. New York: Doubleday.
This page intentionally left blank
 1
Information Design
in Motion
Beth Mazur
University of Baltimore

In the foreword of Visual information for everyday use, Paul Stiff (1999)
looks for “the proper history” which “is written of the thinking and
practices which cluster around information design—an awkward term
for a still contested idea” (p. xi, italics added).
This chapter is not that history. A “proper” history is the subject of its
own book, perhaps requiring, as Karen Schriver (1997) suggests, a histo-
rian to do the subject justice. As such, this history is just one of “many
histories of information design that could be constructed” (Sless, 1998, p.
3). My apologies, in advance, for omitting any important facts or people.
Ultimately this chapter is part bibliographic essay, part speculation.
It provides a historical context, a look at where information design is
today, and where it may be going—information design in motion.

A brief history of information design

In this section, I touch on early work in the field, look at the field’s
formative years (1970s and 1980s), and then discuss how the Internet has
played an important role in information design.

Early work in information design

One of the challenges in developing a history of information design is
first choosing what one pays attention to. As the introduction to this
volume suggests, what information design is depends considerably
15
16 Mazur
on how one has come to the field. Given this, a history of information
design naturally depends on one’s perspective (or perspectives)—or on
one’s familiarity with different kinds of information design products.

Information graphics
As perhaps the most well-known product in information design, con-
sider the work of Edward Tufte and Richard Saul Wurman. Tufte and
Wurman have gained a lion’s share of the press for their work in the field
(at least in the United States), resulting in a natural tendency to view
their work as representative of the entire field of information design.
Tufte’s perspective is that of a statistician, with an emphasis on data-
rich information graphics. A famous example of this approach would be
Charles Minard’s 1861 diagram of the losses incurred by Napoleon’s
army in the Russian campaign of 1812, of which Tufte (1983) notes: “it
may well be the best statistical graphic ever drawn.” (p. 40)
Tufte (1983) credits William Playfair (1759-1823) with developing or
improving upon “nearly all the fundamental graphical designs” (p. 9) In
later books, he draws from even earlier “information designers,” com-
menting that the “wonder of Information Design is that I can write a
book in 1990 and the main intellectual hero is Galileo” (Computer
Literacy Bookshops, 1997). In this same interview, he credits John W.
Tukey, “the phenomenal Princeton statistician,” with opening his eyes to
the importance of the field of statistical graphics in the mid 1960s.
Robert Horn, the founder of Information Mapping,1 also
approaches information design from primarily an information graphic
perspective. He described the different approaches to information design
as information graphics, presentation or business graphics, scientific
visualization, interface design, or wayfinding. (Horn, 1999) Thus it is no
surprise that for him, the roots of the field are similar to Tufte’s. He
credits Playfair, and acknowledges Florence Nightingale for “inventing
new types of statistical graphs and being one of the first to use informa-
tion design in a public policy report” (p. 17).
He extends this history in Visual Language (Horn, 1998) by providing
a timeline of the “innovations” in visual language, starting first with
Egyptian hieroglyphics and concluding with the World Wide Web. In
addition to Playfair and Nightingale, he credits early pioneers such as
Joseph Priestley as the inventor of the biographical timeline (1765),
Michael George Mulhall as the inventor of pictorial statistics (1885), Otto
Neurath as the inventor of ISOTYPE, the use of pictographic visuals for
information graphics (1930s),2 , and Henry Gantt as the inventor of the
now well-known Gantt chart for project management (1900–1911). 3
Obviously all of these are important precursors to the field of
information design today. Yet they are only part of the picture, simply
Information Design in Motion 17
because one can do information design without graphics—and certainly
without the rich information graphics described by Tufte and Wurman.

Public information products

Another type of important information design product are the “public
information products” (Easterby & Zwaga, 1984) such as instructional
text, tax and insurance forms, and medical leaflets. Information design-
ers working on this type of product typically focus on creating usable
products through the use of graphic design elements such as typography
and layout. An excellent source for early work in this field can be found
in the journal Visible Language4 (published as The Journal of Typographical
Research from 1967 to 1972).
Karen Schriver (1997) made note of the following early design
pioneers: Edward Johnston as the creator of the sans serif typeface for the
London Underground (1916), Ernst Keller as an early proponent of the
grid system of design (1918), Walter Gropius as the founder of the
Bauhaus movement (in 1919) with its emphasis on “the functional use of
grids, asymmetrical organization of elements, and sans serif typefaces”
(p. 110), and Jan Tschichold as the author of Die Neue Typographie (1928).

Documents
This third set of information products are closely related to the second;
they differ primarily by an increased emphasis on writing and rhetoric
(Schriver, 1997).5 This group of products typically include those familiar
to technical communicators: user manuals, reference guides, or online
help. Early pioneers in this area include: T. A. Rickard, who published
Guide to Technical Writing (1908), Samuel Chandler Earle, who published
The Theory and Practice of Technical Writing (1911), becoming known as
“the Father of Technical Writing Instruction” (p. 108), and Kenneth
Burke, who published Rhetoric of Motives (1950).

Wayfinding, maps
An important variant of public information products are those that are
meant to assist readers with finding their way in physical space—
“wayfinding” or “environmental communication.” (Passini, 1999, p. 88)
Wayfinding products include road signs, traffic-management picto-
grams, airport and railway station signage. These types of products have
been particularly important in Europe, with its large, nationalized
transportation organizations and multilingual populations.
In Visual Function, Mijksenaar (1997) described how early designers,
influenced by the Bauhaus’ abolition of capital letters, chose to use all
lower-case letters when Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport was con-
structed—“despite the fact that legibility research conducted in 1960 had
18 Mazur
shown what every typographer had long known, that the recognizability
of names, especially in the kind of search operations involved in reading
signposts and forms, increases significantly when each name or sentence
begins with a capital letter” (p. 22).6
One of the most striking examples of early information design in
wayfinding is the work of Jock Kinneir and Margaret Calvert in the 1950s
and 1960s for the British road network, where experimental work in percep-
tion and cognition were critical components of the project (Kinneir, 1984).

The formative years

The previous section described some of the products of early pioneers of
information design. My categorizations of these efforts are likely to be
debated, but one thing is certain; none of these early pioneers would
have described their work using the label information design. Information
design as a distinct field began to emerge in the late 1970s, although the
term appeared a bit earlier. In Graphic Design for the Computer Age,
Edward A. Hamilton (1970) wrote prophetically that the “information
designer is in reality a teacher—and no better compliment may be paid a
professional designer than to call him a teacher” (p. 14).
The more widely recognized origin of modern information design
was the 1978 NATO Conference on Visual Presentation of Information
held in Het Vennenbos, The Netherlands. The conference took an inter-
disciplinary approach, involving cognitive psychologists, human factors
researchers, engineers, typographers, and designers to “try to relate
visual and perceptual research to the practical problems of designing
information displays” (Easterby & Zwaga, 1984, p. xxii).7
Rather than deal with the phenomenon of “heavily oversubscribed”
(p. xxi) sessions related to computer applications, the Het Vennenbos
conference instead focused on simple, public information products such
as signage, forms, and procedural aids. Another important objective was
an emphasis on the interdisciplinary aspects of information design.
Easterby and Zwaga subsequently undertook the effort to publish
the contributions of the conference participants. The resulting work was
published in 1984 as Information Design: The Design and Evaluation of Signs
and Printed Material, with contributions organized into sections on theory
and method, design parameters, and multiple sections on applications in
sign systems, road traffic signs, consumer/safety signs, and printed
material (such as procedural manuals and forms).
Although the conference is a notable event in the early years of
information design, perhaps the major legacy of the conference was
Information Design Journal (IDJ). As Easterby and Zwaga (1984) note,
it was at Het Vennenbos that “Rob Waller gained support … for his
Information Design in Motion 19
intended Information Design Journal, which … numbers among its edito-
rial board many of the experts who were at its conference” (1984, p. xxv).
In fact, the IDJ actually predated the publication of the 1984 Het
Vennenbos volume; the first issue of IDJ was published in 1979. Rob
Waller (1996) wrote:

IDJ was started to consolidate a community of interest—an

invisible college—that had emerged in the 70s among a number
of designers, teachers and researchers. It built on and was
inspired by Michael Twyman’s curriculum at Reading University
Typography Department, Merald Wrolstad’s Journal of Typo-
graphical Research (later renamed Visible Language) and the
interdisciplinary work of Herbert Spencer and his RCA col-
leagues, Patricia Wright at the MRC,8 Jim Hartley and Peter
Burnhill, and the Textual Communication Research Group at the
Open University, where I was based. IDJ had a definite agenda—
to get specialists in language and design talking to each other,
and to make research more accessible to designers.

Waller (1996) noted that he and his coeditor, Bryan Smith, “tossed a
number of terms about before settling on [information design], but
whether it was original or not I can’t say.”9
The inaugural issue of the IDJ included articles on teletext and
viewdata (Linda Reynolds, Royal College of Art), design history and the
visual language of design (Bryan Smith, London College of Printing),
quality control of document design (Patricia Wright, Medical Research
Council), and functional information design (Rob Waller, The Open
University), among others (Information Design Journal, 1979). Over its
early years, the IDJ also organized five conferences for its readership,
thus providing an opportunity for members of this community to meet
and share ideas (Waller, 1996).
As a journal with an international readership, the IDJ deserves much
of the credit for making information design visible as a field. But its
efforts were greatly assisted by the launch of the London-based Informa-
tion Design Association10 (IDA) in 1991. For the first half of the 1990s,
the IDA organized meetings and generated a newsletter, IDeAs,11 for its
membership (Waller, 1996). Although the IDA may have not achieved
some of the lofty goals of its founders (see Waller), the IDA clearly
provided considerable momentum for the development of the field.
Up until this point, I have been describing activities centered prima-
rily in the UK and the Netherlands. But there were also others involved
in early information design work. In fact, another information design
group, the International Institute for Information Design (IIID),12 was
20 Mazur
formed in 1988 and centered in Austria, although it was fairly inactive
until the mid 1990s.
Others included the Communication Research Institute of Australia,
whose early activities are described by David Sless (1998), the design
work of Eric Spiekermann in Berlin (president of the IIID, founder of
MetaDesign, and coauthor of the popular typographic volume Stop
Stealing Sheep & find out how type works), and that of Rune Pettersson of
Mälardalen University in Sweden, author of Visuals for information,
research, and practice in 1989 and vice president for the IIID.
On the ID-Café, Conrad Taylor (2000) described the work of Sven
Lidman, the Swedish encyclopedia editor:

He’s been a strong advocate of what Bob Horn calls “Visual

Language,” but for which Sven coined the term “lexivisuals”
some twenty or more years ago. He founded the Bild och Ord
Akademin (Picture & Word Academy) and financed a kind of
Nobel Prize for information design in Sweden (Lidmanpriset),
and has been a strong advocate of replacing text with explana-
tory graphics in textbooks, newspapers, magazines etc.

Meanwhile, across the pond in the United States, there were complemen-
tary activities, even if they weren’t described using the term information
design. Schriver (1997) described in detail the work of the Document
Design Project (DDP), an effort funded by the National Institute of
Education. The project involved academia and industry, including the
American Institutes for Research (and its Document Design Center, led
by Janice Redish), what became the Communications Design Center
(CDC) at Carnegie Mellon University, and the design firm Siegel & Gale.
Schriver (1997) noted: “The output of the DDP was rather impres-
sive. The Project provided training to government personnel from more
than 15 federal agencies … on at least 13 different projects” (p. 73). In
addition, the work on the DDP produced two foundational works,
Review of the Relevant Research in 1980, and Guidelines for Document
Designers in 1981.
Both the CDC and the Document Design Center (later the Informa-
tion Design Center) contributed considerably to document design
research (Schriver, 1997). Unfortunately, the CDC was closed in 1990 as
part of a change in institutional support; the Information Design Center
was similarly closed in the late 1990s. But the work accomplished by
these groups, and those influenced by this early work, led to a strong
American movement toward the concept of document design, which
Schriver (1997) defines as the “act of bringing together prose, graphics
(including illustration and photography), and typography for purposes
Information Design in Motion 21
of instruction, information, or persuasion” (p. 10). Clearly document
design is very close to information design, and there was and continues
to be considerable sharing between the two communities via journals,
conferences, and other related activities.
Another influence during these years was the work of American
designers, such as Jan White (1982), whose Editing by Design provided a
“how-to” approach for effective word-and-picture communication for
editors and designers. White was an early proponent of the idea of
design as being more than “good looks.” Instead, he noted that design
“is an arm of editing, that is, interpreting the meaning of, a story” (p. 3).
Although he worked primarily in magazine design, his techniques
extended beyond that medium to other print works.
Meanwhile, Tufte published The Visual Display of Quantitative Infor-
mation (1983), with Envisioning Information (1989), and Visual Explanations
(1997), along with writing other books and doing popular seminars on
information design.
Richard Saul Wurman also created a number of information design13
pieces during this time, such as his Access Guides (starting in 1980) and
his USAtlas—the inspiration for the latter being that “you do not drive
across the United States alphabetically.” (1996, p. 31)
Wurman followed these pieces with Information Anxiety (1989),
Information Architects (1996), Understanding (1999), and the revised
Information Anxiety 2 (2000). While not universally acclaimed (e.g., see
Sless, 2001), they provide very interesting and innovative examples of
approaches to complexity in information products and are regarded as
essential works for information designers (Albers & Lisberg, 2000).

The Internet years

The mid-1990s and the increased popularity of the Internet and the
introduction of the World Wide Web would impact information design in
ways that could not have been anticipated. For one, this technology
enabled communication between disciplines and communities that had
only been marginally possible prior to this point (Schriver, 1997; Saul
Carliner, personal communication, 2001). In addition, the exponential
growth of web sites would cause many information designers (or would-
be information designers) to begin to explore how the field could help
with these new products.
In September 1994, many of the original participants of the Het
Vennenbos reconvened in Lunteren, The Netherlands. The conference
again focused on information design in the public information space,
with emphasis on the “cooperation and dialogue” between researchers
and designers (Stiff, 1995, p. 65; Nijhuis & Boersema, 1994). And as with
22 Mazur
the earlier conference, there was a lasting—and extremely valuable—
legacy besides the papers and subsequent book: the InfoDesign and
InfoDesign-Café email discussion lists.14 With these lists, anyone with an
email account would be able to discuss the field with others interested in
the subject, share news about research, papers, and related conferences,
and, in essence, build a global community of information designers.
Around the same time, the IIID became more active, as noted by
director Peter Simlinger:

We … started with two conferences in 1993 and 1994 to decide

on definitions and a work program. In 1995, we organized the
first Vision Plus symposium “Designing for electronic communi-
cation” which at that time was embedded in an advanced
studies course, directed by Prof. David Sless of Australia and
advised by Dieter Willich, Germany. Its staff included additional
experts of Great Britain, The Netherlands, and Austria. Students
came from Japan, Australia, Britain, Germany, and Austria.
(personal communication, 2001)

In early 1996, a U.S.-based information design group was created to

support information design activities. In its initial solicitation letter to
potential members, Wes Ervin described the U.S.-based Information
Design Association (not to be confused with the earlier formed, UK-
based IDA) as an organization “dedicated to promoting the practice of
information design in North America.” Its advisory board included
Richard Saul Wurman as a “prominent information designer” (personal
communication, March 16, 1996).
The U.S.-based IDA was affiliated with the IIID; the “close to 100”
charter members received copies of the IIID newsletter, ID News. How-
ever, despite encouraging support from its new membership, the U.S.-
based IDA was unable to sustain itself, and in 1997 merged with the IIID.
In January 1997, I founded the Information Design special interest
group (ID SIG)15 within the Society of Technical Communication (STC).
With STC’s membership base,16 the ID SIG quickly grew to its current
membership of about 3,000. Its activities over the last few years have
centered around a regular newsletter, Design Matters, SIG participation at
STC’s annual conference in May, and other activities (such as this volume).

Information design in the present

As of the writing of this chapter, the UK-based IDA is being reorga-
nized.17 The IIID is working to establish IIID.Japan and develop two
“thematic networks” on manual design and knowledge presentation.
The STC ID SIG continues publishing its newsletter, coordinating
Information Design in Motion 23
information design activities at its annual conference, and working closely
with members of the international information design community.
The Information Design Journal (IDJ) has been reorganized under the
editorial leadership of Piet Westendorp and Karel van der Waarde (Delft
University of Technology, The Netherlands) and published by John
Benjamins in Amsterdam.18 The content is now organized around a
section of articles that is theme-based and a section of articles related to a
recent information design conference. In the first issue of this new
collaboration, the theme focuses on a discussion of Jacques Bertin’s
theory of geographic visualization; the conference review was of the
IIID’s Vision Plus 6, held in Vienna in July, 1999 (Westendorp & van der
Waarde, 2000/2001).
The InfoDesign and InfoDesign-Café mailing lists underwent their
own organizational change. Maintained for the first 3 years by Yuri
Engelhardt at the University of Amsterdam, the lists were administered
for a short time by Conrad Taylor (deputy chair and newsletter editor
for the IDA).
At the present time, the lists are administered and moderated by
Karel van der Waarde (who is assisted by Conrad Taylor, Karen Schriver,
Alan Davis, Yuri Engelhardt, and Piet Westendorp). InfoDesign contin-
ues as a moderated list with relatively low volume, but high quality
content (book reviews, conference announcements, etc.). InfoDesign-Café
is not moderated and thus remains “home to many freewheeling discus-
sions” (www.informationdesign.org).

Defining information design today

Much has happened to information design since the 1970s and 1980s. Yet
one thing that hasn’t changed is that people inside and outside the field
are still asking the question: what is information design? As described in
the introduction of this volume, there are as many definitions as groups.
From the STC ID SIG’s perspective, it was important that our per-
spective of information design wasn’t redundant with the broader
concept of technical communication (or there would be no point in a
special interest group within a professional association of technical
communicators). We were very much influenced by Wurman’s Informa-
tion Architecture, although we chose to retain the term of the European
community. Our position has been that the field of information design
applies traditional and evolving design principles to the process of
translating complex, unorganized, or unstructured data into valuable,
meaningful information.
Or should we say, “representations of information.” In his concluding
chapter in Information Design, Jef Raskin (1999) is “delighted” to point out
that information design is a “misnomer. Information cannot be designed;
24 Mazur
what can be designed are the modes of transfer and the representations of
information … it is important for designers to keep the concepts of infor-
mation and meaning distinct” (emphasis in the original)” (p. 342).
However, ultimately the term information design is just shorthand—
as Wurman said, a way of “making the complex clear.” Or as Conrad
Taylor noted: “Using the term information design as a functional label
for what we do doesn’t preclude having some pretty sophisticated
views about how information is parlayed into meaning” (personal
communication, 2001).
I expect that questions of defining information design will be re-
solved eventually, particularly as there are so many concepts in common
between the existing definitions. In the remainder of this section, I look
at two other discussions within the community that have interested me
recently (in fact, have been the subject of two of our newsletters). One is
the question of how information design relates, overlaps, or is distinct
from other fields, particularly information architecture. The other is the
question of whether information design is a craft, a profession,19 or some
other kind of entity.
Many within the community are not as interested in such discus-
sions. Indeed, Wurman noted that he found such discussions “academic
and pointless” (2001, p. 9). I am sympathetic to such concerns, for as
Wurman also suggests, perhaps there are better things to do with our
time, given the amount of bad design! Yet, I think that there are two main
issues that make these discussions relevant.
First, there is the argument that if we can’t adequately explain what
it is we do, how do we expect to get clients to pay for it? Information
design, graphic design, technical writing, and usability are all examples
of fields that may be perceived by business as being add-ons, things to do
only when the budget or schedule permits—in other words, nonessential.
The majority of practitioners in these communities know that just the
opposite is true—yet efforts to provide justification (through research or
case studies) showing return on investment are patchy at best.
This ties in to the second argument. Often this kind of justification
effort is located within academic communities. But information design is
only now becoming an established discipline within academia. What is it
that these programs teach? Is information design taught at Reading
University the same as the field taught at Georgia Tech? Should it be?
Are the best located within traditional departments (such as design or
English)? Or in new, interdisciplinary departments? Adopting a laissez-
faire attitude towards what we do and how we do it—even if there are so
many important things to do—seems less likely to lead to the kind of
strong, sustained movement needed to make the changes that so many
information designers consider important.
Information Design in Motion 25

Information architecture or information design?

So what about information architecture? According to Wurman, he
coined the term in 1975: Information architects “make the complex clear;
they make the information understandable to other human beings”
(2000, p. 23). This sounds very much like what could be considered
information design. Yet in a post on the InfoDesign mailing list, Wurman
clarified his choice of terms:

I selected the term information “architect” rather than informa-

tion “designer” as the term “designer” continues to be inter-
preted by the public as an individual who is hired to come in
after the fact to make some project “look better”—as opposed to a
professional part of the initial team creatively solving a problem.

I do not believe I can change this popular preconception. I

believe the term information architect evokes a rigor in the
creation, research, choice as well as the presentation of informa-
tion in an understandable yet artful form. (WWW, 3 Apr 1998)

It might have been well and good to have two different names for
essentially the same concepts. However, a new group has recently staked
a claim to the term information architecture, and as popular as Wurman’s
usage might be, this newer information architecture has proven to be a
very influential phenomenon.
This perspective is very useful given the growing complexity of web
sites, which can now contain thousands, or hundreds of thousands, of
individual pages. Understanding structure, organization, and the
concept of meta information to facilitate searching and navigation is a
fundamental requirement for such large sites.
This new field is described by books such as Information Architecture
for the World Wide Web (Rosenfeld & Morville, 1998) and conferences such
as the ASIS (American Society for Information Society) Summit 2000:
Defining Information Architecture. According to Rosenfeld and Morville
(1998), the information architect:

• Clarifies the mission and vision for the site, balancing the needs
of its sponsoring organization and the needs of its audiences.
• Determines what content and functionality the site will contain.
• Specifies how users will find information in the site by defining
its organization, navigation, labeling, and searching systems.
• Maps out how the site will accommodate change and growth
over time. (p. 11)
26 Mazur
The STC ID SIG published a dialog entitled “What’s in a name?”
where participants were asked to discuss informally any differences
between information design and information architecture. Many of the
responses were unsure that focusing on labels was important—indeed,
Nathan Shedroff (2001b) shared Wurman’s sentiment: “I find the hoopla
around the terms to be not only a distraction but a waste of time” (p. 6).
However, I found one response particularly interesting, as I’m
compelled by the concept of a different emphasis on presentation and
structure in information design compared to (the newer) information
architecture. Jesse James Garrett (2001) wrote: “information architecture
and information design are indeed quite different. … Information
architecture is primarily about cognition … Information design is
primarily about perception. … Information architecture belongs to the
realm of the abstract, concerning itself more with structures in the mind
than the structures on the page or screen. Information design … couldn’t
be more concrete, with considerations such as color and shape funda-
mental to the information designer’s process” (p. 3).
As of the writing of this chapter, this discussion has not been re-
solved (nor do I expect it to be any time soon). As a matter of fact, the IA
community itself is concerned with similar activities (Dillon, 2001;
Rosenfeld, 2001; Wodtke, 2001).
The exponential growth of this web-focused information architecture
has been somewhat tempered by the economic failures of many Internet
ventures in 2001 (the so-called “dot.bomb” phenomenon). This is likely
just a temporary set-back; there is certainly optimism for the future
among that community (Dillon, 2001; ACIA, 2001). In any case, informa-
tion architecture will likely continue to overlap, inform, and provide
context for information design for the foreseeable future.

Craft or profession?
Another ongoing discussion is the question of whether information
design is a craft, a profession, or some other kind of field. This is a
natural extension of the “what is information design?” discussion, but it
extends it in the direction of how people actually practice.
In 1999, the STC ID SIG solicited comments about the prospect of
information design as a profession. Among the many interesting re-
sponses was one from David Sless (1999), who thought of information
design more as a craft than as a profession: “I think sociologically and
culturally we have more in common with craft workers in previous
centuries than we have with professionals in our own century” (p. 8).
Conrad Taylor (2000) was similarly unconvinced that information
design is a profession, seeing it “more as a stance that one takes, like a