Author: sheilapontis
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Six approaches to visualising complexity
As information designers, we often create visual representations of meaning to make hard-to-understand information (e.g. scientific information, highly technical, unknown) more accessible to a wider audience. When well-conceived, these visualisations translate complexity into a simpler way to communicate a key message. Visualisations also help understand patterns and trends represented in large and rich datasets. Broadly, the visualisation process consists of extracting meaning…
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How can information design support sensemaking cognitive activities
Sometimes, making sense of data* can be challenging. Data is often perceived this way when a data set is too big or too complex. This indicates that size (small/big) and nature (simple/complex) are frequent issues that can influence the sensemaking process. In these cases, why is data hard to make sense of? Size. Not surprisingly, having loads…
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Visual reasoning through information design
The visual communication of complex or less known topics (e.g. science, medicine, mathematics) in simpler and clearer ways appeals to users and readers’ visual reasoning. Visual reasoning is the process of both analysing information presented in visual form (e.g. pictures, diagrams, drawings) and solving problems based on visual logic combining verbal, mathematical and visual analysis. As with other types of reasoning,…
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Be a more creative problem-solver: Unlearn what you know
Creativity and innovation have become common place. But, paradoxically, there seems to be great confusion around both terms to the extent that ‘definitions about these terms vary widely’ (Kaufman and Sternberg, 2010). In some cases, creativity and innovation are used almost interchangeably (Berns, 2008; Seeling, 2015), while in others creativity and innovation are clearly described as different terms. This lack of clarity and,…
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Improve your info management & conceptual design skills – Help test MapCI Cards!
I started my information design practice in the editorial world creating diagrams, information graphics, and information panels. In this context, I frequently encountered unintelligible and cluttered information design outputs: intended messages were not clearly communicated or were hard to understand. These ineffective outputs had major structural problems (e.g. display irrelevant information) and basic mistakes (e.g. ineffective colour use), but also reflected designers’ poor content understanding and…
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Changing times for information design
Earlier this month, I attended Vision Plus 15 at Birmingham City University, the information design conference organised by IIID and IDA. The core topic of the conference was ‘information + design = performance’. During the two days of the conference, this topic was discussed on 26 talks thematically grouped into eight different angles, including wayfinding, ways to improve…
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Unambiguous communication: the key to understanding
In many previous posts (e.g. here, here, here), I have written about understanding, but a key part for effectively achieving understanding is clear communication. Every day we interact and communicate with family, friends, colleagues, students, and people on the street (e.g. giving a direction). However many of these interactions may not result in the way we intended. In some cases,…
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The ephemeral approach of doing
A different way of thinking about the world from home environments, bank transactions and food shopping to learning environments characterizes current societies. IKEA, the Internet and technological devices have contributed to this phenomenon in different areas. Since 1943, IKEA (founded by Ingvar Kamprad) has been an innovative business which introduced the idea of ‘good design at low prices’,…
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Design thinking revised
I recently came across the article ‘Is “Design Thinking” the new liberal arts?’ which analyses design thinking from the viewpoint of the d.school at Stanford University (where design thinking started to be officially taught), and its application as a learning approach for education. The central idea of the article is How can design thinking be…
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An (Even) Deeper Dive into Conceptual Design
Many blog posts ago, I provided a closer look to conceptual design, preceded by an extensive discussion about the information architecture model (IAM) involved in this same part of the design process. Mostly, though, these two posts provided insights on tasks and activities involved in the analysis, simplification, and organisation of content, and key resulting…
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Enhancing understanding through Teaching and Facilitation
When teaching a workshop or facilitating a session the classroom or meeting room becomes a space for thinking, discussing and understanding. Lately, the concept of teaching has changed from a more traditional approach associated with teachers-students power dynamic in which teacher delivers content and students receive it to a more participatory dynamics in which students…
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Embrace ignorance and ask questions
Many times we are in situations in which we aren’t familiar with what the other person is talking about, we don’t know the book someone is describing, or we simply don’t know the answer to a question, but instead of saying so, we just say nothing, smile and nod as if we knew or respond with…
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