Information Design TrendsUnit 2

Lecture Two: Designing Public Information

Information Design Evaluation

Detect and correct behavioral and communication problems before the product is released to the public. Front-end

Identify the audiences entering knowledge, biases and attitudes

Formative Pretest users behavior, attention and learning

Elements of Communication in Interpretive Settings

The Information FieldContains both primary and competing messages.Perceptual filters may distort incoming information.

The degree of distortion reflects the organization of information elements, the efficiency of the design and the appropriateness of the media

The entire Information Field rarely is under the designer’s control.

Design EfficiencyThe average time it takes a user to find and assimilate a given message.

Visitor Attention

Raw visit time and frequency statistics do not tell the whole picture.Quality of visitor attention. Mindless Attention

Automatic, Brief, Casual, “Window Shopping” Mindful Attention

Focused, Selective, Comparative

Dependant upon Audience Motivation.

Reinforcers, Punishers and Motivation

Fun and Pretty alone rarely translate into Mindful Attention or user motivation.Reinforcers: Intrinsic – natural parts of most activities, including

exploring an environment, meeting challenges, having conversations

External – under the control of someone or something outside the self

Punishers: Aversive stimuli that reduce the frequency of

associated behaviors when they are presented

Contingencies

A contingency is a one-way, dependent relationship between a given behavior and its consequence.

Most contingencies are natural aspects of human activities and interactions.

The Designer does not need to manufacture contingencies in order to take advantage of them.

Goal-Centered Strategies

An explicit goal can promote Mindful Attention to unfamiliar information.A goal can help a user to integrate new information with existing knowledge, and attitudes.A tangible goal has the advantage of having a clear beginning, a middle, and a definable end.