Author: sheilapontis
-
A Tool From a Novice’s Perspective
This summer I have been exploring the world of quantitative analysis, statistics and data visualisation (here by data vis I’m specifically referring to visualisations purely created with large quantities of numeric data). As part of this journey, one of my aims was to gain familiarity with Tableau, as it is one of the most frequently…
-
Field Research in Information Design
If you are an information designer you can enhance your work by using field research. However, this type of research is still frequently overlooked in information design professional practice (the research community does conduct research studies, but that reality is very different from what occurs in the daily design practice). Traditional market research methods (surveys, online…
-
Five things I learnt from my students
For the last two years, I have been teaching various flavours of design (information design, design thinking, interaction design) in non-design institutions. So far, the experience has been extremely eye opening but also challenging as when I started, I didn’t know how different it would be from previous years of teaching similar courses in design…
-
An Ethnographic Information Design Approach II
Since I have taken new challenges, my commute has changed quite a bit. However, my research+info design mind hasn’t. I can’t help paying attention to emerging patterns during my morning and afternoon commutes (among other daily situations). Last week, I was re-reading some of my old blog posts, and remembered the one I wrote illustrating the…
-
How to mirror brain cognitive processes with Information Design
Information design solutions can look really attractive, but quite a few fail to achieve their intended goal: audience cannot understand them. Why is that? Frequently this occurs when design decisions do not support cognitive activities. Often, this is the consequence of designers using visual variables inconsistently or with no intention, but designing information with no structure or visual organisation can also be…
-
Being Designers is more than just Design
Nowadays teaching design in non-design schools and to non-design students doesn’t seem as foreign as it may have been 10 or 15 years ago. However, this experience has given me a new understanding of what “being a designer” really means. Some people describe designers as artists or creative minds, and think that anyone could become a designer just…
-
The Curious Case of Information Design
Sometimes I’m puzzled. In theory, information design (at least, the visualising information aspect of the field) has exponentially grown in the last decade. Articles and examples of visualisations and infographics pop almost every day, and now, if you are work in this field, when you start explaining what you do, everyone nodes and cites the…
-
Creative Designers, A Needed Oxymoron
The final project of my undergraduate creativity and design class is a quite vague and broad assignment. Students are asked to create something (we call it “Personal Creativity Manifesto”) to show how creative they have become but also how their creative and design selves would have a role and make an impact in the future. The…
-
Culture Matters in Design Education
Increasingly, designers are investing a greater effort to get familiar with their intended-users by learning their needs and motivations. This understanding helps designers make more informed decisions, and consequently create solutions more directly targeted to specific and real user needs. Although with less intensity, culture plays also a key role in the design process, particularly when…
-
Design Thinking for Art & Design Educators
Last week I was pleased to go all the way to Soria in Spain to teach a three-day workshop on design thinking and team dynamics to the educators of Escuela de Arte y Superior de Design (EASD – Art & Design School). Soria is located two and half hours away from Madrid and is the capital of the…
-
Complexity or poor attention?
Yes, we do live in a complex world. Yes, the constant production of information and the instant access to it also contribute to that complexity. But, are our everyday problems actually more complex than ever or is this the result of how we perceive them rather than how they really are? Many factors seem to be contributing…
-
The Missing “Why”
Either if you are an experienced designer (e.g. have been working in practice for over 15 years) or if you have just graduated, you most likely make design decisions largely based on either your intuition (“I just know”), your experience (“This works well many times before”) or, more recently, users’ feedback (“this option is much…
You must be logged in to post a comment.