Summary

Continuing our last chapter, the book shows us how important it is to organize our information to increase company’s efficiency and saving consumer’s time to find the information needed. We then move on with the topic creative brief. Every professional project needs to have a creative brief that explains why the project is done that way and the concept behind it. Creative brief typically ranged from one to 10 pages. Not all companies call this a creative brief, some might call them shared understanding. I believe that all projects need this kind of explanation of the project especially when we are working as a team. Persona basically means imagining the users. As a designer we want to do a research of the market. So we know exactly what is the demand in the market. Hence, we made a persona that can reflect the specific personal attributes, desires, needs, habits, and capabilities of certain user group. On the other hand, scenarios show us how users interact with information design itself. A scenario can be a specific story written in a narrative form, a diagram, or many others form that reflect how a user completes a detailed transaction.


Topics Covered
Organizing data
Creative brief
Project Overview
Personas and scenarios


Two links germaine to topics covered

1. Two images of a good persona example

http://chopsticker.files.wordpress.com/2007/09/personasample2-p1.jpg

http://chopsticker.files.wordpress.com/2007/11/personasample2-p2a.jpg

2. A very good simple and easy to understand example of how to make a good scenario for a given project.

www.infodesign.com.au/ftp/Scenarios.pdf

Summary
More and more information designers find that to be a successful information designer, one need to understand what is the goal and purpose of the project or company that they are working for. This is really making sense to me. If you think about it, how can one solve a problem without knowing what the real problem is. Designers need to know a client decision-making process, internal challenges, develop a solid relationship with the people in the company to give you more insight, and know who wields the power in the company.


“Information design project require careful thought, collaboration, planning, and a process that goes beyond the intuitive, gut-level, and sometimes solitary approach that many designers have been trained to use”

A couple of things that a designer should notice when starting to make their project would be to outline the process, know who is in the team, and assign the work for the people, and know when is the due date of the project. In conclusion, after we understand what we suppose to do with the assigned project, then we should start doing it. However, our job does not end here. The next thing we need to learn is to know who our audience is. Even though we succeed to convince the company with our solution, the solution will not be called succeed when the audiences who are suppose to receive the information did not get it. Organizing the information both for the inside and outside of the company is needed for the efficiency of the company itself. Without proper organization, especially in a big company,

Real World Experiences

1. I once was tasked to do a website for a non-profit organization. I was so ready to make the website and ask them what kind of information do you wan to put in the website. The people said that I just need to wait and they will send me the data that I needed. I wait for a couple weeks and ask them again. They dent me to one of the organization member for the data. I asked for it and he said he is going to send it to me. Again, I waited for a couple days and ask them what do I suppose to put in the website. Not surprisingly, they said they would send it to me. I still have not got the information that I needed to make what kind of website is suitable for this kind of organization. And they still don’t have a website until now. This story shows me how important it is to stay connected with the client and how the company works to make a suitable solution for them.

2. Around one year ago, a client asked me to make a flyer for an event got his company. It was just a small company and the director himself is still very young. He does not seem to know much about design and what he really want. There are actually two guys who have the power in this company. One of them said I need to do this, and the other say I need to do that . This show me how important it Is ot know who has the power in the company, and know what they really want. Or you will end up mix up what to do with the project and keep redoing it.

Related URLs

http://www.capturedeliverexcel.com/


I took a business writing class around a year ago, and this is the website and book that I need to read. It talks about how to write a business deal or any writing while engaging and informative to the audiences. There is a whole chapter that talks about clarity that I feel has the same meaning with plain language. We should use a simple and understandable words rather than fancy words with ambiguous meaning.

http://research-writing-techniques.suite101.com/article.cfm/organizing_howto_content

This site shows us a lot of extremely useful tips to organizing contents in our writing to pitfalls in writing. If you get stuck or does not understand the guidelines in writing, and how to communicate with our audiences in writing, I would recommend to visit this site.

Summary
People cannot be called designers just by making something look good without any purpose or meaning in their design. Current designers are trained to approach the information design structure. Effective design are needed to make life easier. In the world where information is one of the key to be successful, our world if overloaded with information. More and more companies and businesses turn to designer eventually turn to designer to simplify the information, especially in advertising or an announcement, to lead people and leave them with no confusion.

Information design is a new subject in our industry. However, as our world develop and modernized, this new subject will be more needed than ever. The subject has turn from a specialist perspective to be a generalist perspective. The more complex an information is, the more a user-centric mindset is required for the necessary design.

“Effective communication is the very essence of information design”

I think the quote itself is the main point of what we are learning in this class. How we get there is the main problem for effective communication. People process the information that they receive in many different ways. Dictatorial linear design or maybe even just plain text instruction (usually for traditional maps instruction) have both their advantages and disadvantages. It is depend on the subject that we are talking about. However, one thing for sure is that people need the attraction of the information that they read, so that they would actually spend time to actually get what the designers intended them to acknowledged. To be a good information designer, one need to be a content-focused and have user centric mind. Content-focused basically mean that you know the final goal of what you are doing, and deliver that goal to the intended audiences. User-centric means that as a designer we need to think like the users and not like the engineers. Keep in mind that the end users are the people who needed the information.


Anecdotes

1. The ais building with its very confusing sign is an anecdote. First time I came here two years ago, I cannot find where is the restroom and any of my classrooms. I asked the front desk for each classes. I don’t even know which one is the north and which one is the south campus. I think they should make a signage with proper information in front of the building and number each class room and maybe write down what classes are running in that class at what time. Thus, students can know what available time the class is empty. North campus is a little better than south campus. The numbering sections for classroom are not even clear in south campus.
2. The Seattle aquarium map. I easily get lost in the seattle aquarium and again need to ask the security and janitors where I am and how to get to a specific room. The signage is not clear. Furthermore, it does not match with the Seattle aquarium interior and exterior building design and color.


Related Urls

1.http://msy.com.au/
an example of a very poorly design website. It is an Australia website and its purpose is to sell computer parts. What even surprises is that this website has been running for years. The website is last updated September 2009. I think what they want to make is a lot like craigslist.com, but a very poor version of it.

2. http://www.visualcomplexity.com/vc/

I love this website. It makes the most boring and a very complicated statistic, articles, or any information to be interesting and easy to understand. This website is actually a collection of a good information design. The designers definitely using the centric and content focused mind in their works.

Census Bureau is a government based program that serve as the leading source of quality data about nation's people and economy. Census Bureau provide the best mix of timeliness, relevancy, quality, and cost for the data that they collect. They launched their websites which contains a lot of data about United States Population and Housing Census, Economic Census, and American Community surveys. Currently, the website is showing all the information mentioned above simply using a list or tables. It is an old and fast way to present a complex data in a simpler way. in However, to be fully successful in communicating the data for the users, Census Bureau realize that they need a more attractive and informative ways to present the data so that people who need the information can find it easily. Our team, Christian, Masayo, and Natalia, work closely with Census Bureau to build an appropriate ways to present the abundant information in a simple and easily understandable way. Census Bureau hope that with the new looks of how they communicating their information, it would help more people in finding the data that they need. Moreover, to attract people know more about the current condition of United States consensus.

Subject;Research the United State statistic data.

Scope; Statistic the United State population, temperature, rate of black, white , asian, and others

Format; Flash

Resources;

population
http://www.factmonster.com/ipka/A0004986.html

rate
http://www.blackboysreport.org/node/110

Temperatures
http://www.netstate.com/states/tables/st_temp.htm

My task is write a map of United State. I am going to use this web site.
http://www.pocanticohills.org/usa02/_derived/usa02.htm_txt_usa.gif

Office Chair station is a company that focuses itself in making the most comfortable office chair that suits your workplace. The company need to differentiate its product with other competitors that will show how and why their products are better than other. Office Chair station were always proud to announce how comfy and relaxing their office chairs are. However, some people still complaining how their back and body hurts after sitting hours and hours in their office even though they have been spending around $700 just for a office chair. Office Chair station realize that their costumers should not depend solely on their chair. There are many other factors that effects people perception. I will create an interactive illustration that cover the right sitting posture so people can enjoy more from their chair, and reduce many complaints from the costumers.

1. website? if so, how much real estate in pixel dimensions do you have to work with, how many pages? What do you images/screenshots do you need to establish this project in context?
I’m going to put the illustration in msnbc.com in health section. I will do some screenshots from the actual website

2. print? if so, what magazine, newspaper? What dimensions do you have to work with?
I will create the illustration either in illustrator or flash. Both of them are vector graphic programs so I don’t really need to think about the size first. But probably, it will be around 450 x 550 pixel if I do it in flash and do the roll over image mapping.

i'm going to do an illustration about a good sitting posture when you are doing a project in front of a computer that requires you to stare at the monitor for more than 3 hours.