Information Design

Information design is the newest of the design disciplines. As a sign of our times, when the crafting of messages and meaning is so central to our lives, information design is not only important-it is essential. Contemporary information designers seek to edify more than to persuade, to exchange more than to foist upon. With ever more powerful technologies of communication, we have learned that the issuer of designed information is as likely as the intended recipient to be changed by it, for better or worse. The contributors to this book are both cautionary and hopeful as they offer visions of how information design can be practiced diligently and ethically, for the benefit of information consumers as well as producers. They present various methods that seem to work, such as sense-making and way-finding. They make recommendations and serve as guides to a still young but extraordinarily pervasive-and persuasive-field.

Robert Jacobson is Principal of Bluefire! Consulting, in Silicon Valley (bluefire@well.com).