Information Design Unbound

Sheila Pontis is lecturer at Princeton University (USA), honorary research associate at UCL (UK), and partner at Sense Information Design. Since 2002, she teaches and facilitates workshops on information design, design research, ethnography, and design thinking in Argentina, Spain, the UK and the US. She has produced work for diverse organisations in the US, South America and Europe including Pfizer, TfL, Elsevier, Unilever and NHS. Michael Babwahsingh is an information designer and partner at Sense Information Design. His experience spans strategic design and innovation, branding, and communication design for corporate and non-profit clients. He has taught design thinking at NYU Wagner Graduate School of Public Service. Michael received a BA in Art and Graphic Design from Moravian College.

Introduction

PART I. Context
1. Understanding information design
1.1 Finding our way every day
1.2 Building a working definition
1.3 Mapping out the landscape
1.4 Seeing the bigger picture
1.5 What is effective information design?
1.6 Tracing the historical roots
1.7 Information design comes of age
Exercises

2. How information designers work
2.1 What makes an information designer?
2.2 A collaborative, cross-disciplinary practice
2.3 Ethics and professional conduct
2.4 Working with the information design process
2.5 The scale of information design challenges
Exercises

3. How we process visual information
3.1 The visual information processing system
3.2 Vision
3.3 Perception
3.4 Learning and retrieval
3.5 Thinking and problem-solving
Exercises

4. How we create meaning
4.1 Understanding culture
4.2 Signs, the basic units of meaning
4.3 Rhetoric and communication
4.4 Society, identity, and representation
Exercises

PART II. Skills
5. Thinking and working visually
5.1 Giving shape to thought
5.2 Assembling your visual toolkit
5.3 Learning to sketch
5.4 Using diagrams to think
5.5 Making use of space and form
Exercises

6. Learning through research
6.1 A structured search for knowledge
6.2 Understanding the subject matter
6.3 Understanding the audience
6.4 Planning out your research
6.5 Collecting data
Exercises

7. Sensemaking for communication
7.1 Planning before designing
7.2 Constructing knowledge
7.3 Organizing information
Exercises

8. Designing with clarity
8.1 Focusing on effectiveness
8.2 Content
8.3 Structure
8.4 Presentation
8.5 Engagement
8.6 Performance
Exercises

PART III. Practice
9. Communications
9.1 Working with communications
9.2 Project Re:form
9.3 GAIA Amazonas icon system
9.4 Emergency ventilator instructions
9.5 We Are Here: An Atlas of Aotearoa

10. Experiences
10.1 Working with experiences
10.2 Nemus Futurum interactive visitor experience
10.3 SEPTA wayfinding master plan
10.4 Skicircus wayfinding system
10.5 Seat at the Table interactive exhibit

11. Organizations
11.1 Working with organizations
11.2 Oregon Museum of Science and Industry vision and strategy
11.3 Integrated journey maps

12. Systems
12.1 Working with systems
12.2 Understanding elderly isolation in Pittsburgh
12.3 Systems approach to youth employment in Bhutan
12.4 Navigating the complexity of cancer diagnosis

Resources
Bibliography
Index
Acknowledgments
Image credits