Monday, April 9, 2007

Finally.

"Ideally, structures that organize information should be transparent, straightforward, obvious, natural, ordinary, conventional - with no need for hesitation or question on the part of the reader."

When I stumbled across this passage early into the chapter, I couldn't help but think "boo-yah." And I never use the term "boo-yah," so this is pretty huge. If you go back to my very first post on this blog, you'll realize that this is an issue that has been nagging at me for the entire semester. What is our role as system designers? Is information design about inventing new, exciting ways to classify information in an attempt to capture an audience's attention to otherwise dull subject matter? Or are we simply to use existing, ever-too-familiar methods of classification to present information with extreme clarity? Just look at these past two sentences for example: I could have shortened them. I could have made them more direct and precise. I could have made them more understandable. But I chose to add small flourishes and rhetoric to add a heightened interest. However, this heightened interest is only accessible to those with a deeper level of education. Not someone with, say, a fifth-grade english background. Though they always win "Are You Smarter Than a Fifth Grader," so who knows?

The Myth of Depth, by Mark Tansey, seems to divert slightly from pure information design into fine art theory; reminiscent of the stuff we discussed in Critical Frameworks, as well as the book "Ways of Seeing." I want that painting on my wall.

Babar is fantastic, by the way. I couldn't think of a more delightful way to end this intriguing textbook. Later.

Ry

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