Category: WRR

Senior Lecturer, Visual Communication Design
Massey University, Wellington, New Zealand

What is the motivation to work in information design?

I want to reevaluate complex information to become clear and unambiguous for focused audiences.
In particular where environmental context and situations demand quick decisions.

What are you working on at the moment?

I’m working on UX and visual communication for the health sector and exploring how emerging technologies can assist emergency management and crisis communication.
Currently, we’re trying to find a tool for reducing the stigma associated with an unexpected health diagnosis.

What is a project you consider a great example of information design?

Foldit, a crowd-sourced online puzzle game about protein folding. Maybe the information design part needs some work, however, the concept of combining the internet “hive-mind” and a game to find solutions that ultimately benefit biological and medical advancements and research is fascinating. Also, I’m a big fan of Claudine’s tsunami maps.

What is your dream project?

Developing and designing UX and UI used in surgery theatres and robotic surgery systems.

Showcase

University of Alberta
Edmonton, Canada

Assistant Professor of Design Studies
President of Edmonton Wayfinding Society

What is the motivation to work in information design?

I’m drawn to systems and complexity. I like helping people find solutions to complex issues through research. The idea that design can save lives motivates me.

What are you working on at the moment?

Designing a participatory urban mapping and wayfinding event for Edmonton Design Week in September; researching different ways to explain the patient intake process at hospital emergency rooms; researching how people use instructions in medical/emergency situations.

What is a project you consider a great example of information design?

The London Underground Map—one early example of how to represent information spatially, rather than geographically; Isotype for children’s education publications; A Better A & E, PearsonLloyd; Legible London; Bristol Legible City; and Applied’s work internationally on wayfinding.

What is your dream project?

The design of an educational package to be given out to children in schools that taught systems thinking to school age children;
redesign of an early medical intervention instructions to prevent overdose and death; branding, exhibition design, and wayfinding in a children’s museum.

Mag.a Katrin Beste, BA
Information Design & Signage, Vienna, Austria

What is your motivation to work in information design?

I enjoy that with every project I learn something new. The world is full of information – presenting it in a way which is more comprehensive and easier to take in, gives my work purpose. In my work life as a nutritionist (until 2013) I was good at finding the central thread, reducing complexity and transforming it to »easier« bits. I enjoy this, I am good at it and it helps people to navigate through life.

What are you working on at the moment?

Wayfinding systems in the universitary context, with new pictograms, indoor and outdoor maps and lots of signs …

What is a project you consider a great example of information design?

Unfortunately – for us creators – any project that the users don’t actively remember. Like a good public transport orientation system. Sometimes when I talk about my work with new people I ask them about their experience at the main train station in Vienna. Funnily only people from countries with bad signage understand the point of my question right away.

What is your dream project?

Research on gender and sex influence on orientation and navigation. I wonder if a Google Maps version specifically for people who are oriented towards land­marks instead of cardinal directions and distances would improve their overall ability to navigate. Maybe a book on this Topic? Or »just« a practical project within my office work? Who knows.

Legal Information Designer & Researcher
Espoo, Finland

Researcher at Aalto University School of Science
Initiator of Legal Design Jam and Consultant

What is the motivation to work in information design?

I am interested in design as a problem-solving activity. I am interested in how people interact with complex information. How to achieve clear communication and help people generate insights are a continuous – and continuously interesting – challenge for me as an information designer. I am not the kind of highly artistic or expressive designer – I am rather the nerdy, picky, inquisitive one. I get my kicks by being of service, discreetly, to the users and figure out how to help them achieve their goals.

What are you working on at the moment?

I am working in the emerging field of legal (information) design. I mostly work with contracts, and sometimes with other types of legal documents, and my work is to make them more human-friendly. In particular, I have been working on contract visualization, AKA using diagrams, images and visually structured layouts to make contracts more searchable, readable and understandable.
I wrote my PhD on this topic. I like how this is not purely information design work, but it often overlaps somehow with service design and even change management: a successful intervention requires to listen to, collaborate, and satisfy many different professionals in organizations (civil servants, business people, lawyers, techies…) – or change simply won’t happen.

What is a project you consider a great example of information design?

Just a few ideas on top of my mind – too many good projects to remember them all! The posters of Making Policy Public project by CUP (www.makingpolicypublic.net), Hans Rosling’s Gapminder visualizations; The Dear Data project (www.dear-data.com) and other works by Giorgia Lupi / Accurat; The interactive exhibits in Micropia Museum in Amsterdam (www.micropia.nl), Minard’s map of Napoleon’s winter campaign in Russia (classic choice!); The periodic table and the Feynman’s diagrams (nerdy bonus!)

What is your dream project?

A large, ambitious project with high social impact on citizens and/or business, carried out with some innovative, open-minded, forward-looking organization. Ideally, a respected public organization. I’d want both real impact and high profile “media-sexyness” in order to create momentum and inspire others to follow.

Universidad Autónoma de Occidente
Cali, Colombia

Professor, Dept. of Advertising and Design
Director of the Communication Design Program

What is the motivation to work in information design?

I’m drawn to systems an complexity. I like helping people find solutions to complex issues through research. The idea that design can save lives motivates me.

What are you working on at the moment?

Research in Information design, teacher at this topic, prepare a research into pedestrian wayfinding.

What is a project you consider a great example of information design?

Henry Beck map and Minard representations.

What is your dream project?

Better information into the cities for take decisions and it can make easy the live into the cities.