Designing Information: Human Factors and Common Sense in Information Design

The essential, full-color guide to understanding information design and how to make it better Featuring hundreds of full-color problems and examples, this comprehensive guide discusses and illustrates approaches to designing complex data and information for meaning, relevance, usability, and clarity. Described and analyzed in lucid text and over 500 illustrations, examples include successful, compromised, and failed designs covering everything from parking signs and road and statistical maps to explanations of the appropriate use of line, color, and form. The book provides incisive and useful insights into the process of visualizing complex information and communicating it in a simple, honest, and accessible form. Some of the many topics covered include: The nature of information How we perceive, communicate, and understand Dimensionality, proximity, numbers, and scale Organization and typography Movement, orientation, and situational geography Praise for Designing Information "This is a terrific book. "I began working with Joel Katz 40 years ago. We learned from observing each other, which allowed us to discover maps that lead to understanding. "This volume is just that. "The journey from not knowing to knowing is from ignorance to understanding, from complexity to clarification. This book was done by one of the few who have mastered what I used to call 'information architecture,' and what I perhaps should have called 'understanding architecture.' "The book itself is a diagram of clarification, containing hundreds of examples of work by those who favor the communication of information over style and academic postulation—and those who don't. "Many blurbs such as this are written without a thorough reading of the book. Not so in this case. I read it and love it. "I suggest you do the same." Richard Saul Wurman

10 Introduction 12 1 Aspects of Information Design The nature of information 42 Lines 44 Unintended consequences of shape 48 The middle value principle 50 Connotations of color 52 Color constraints 56 From color to grayscale 58 Generations of labeling 60 Connections among people 62 Connections in products 64 Consistent and mnemonic notation 66 It’s about time 68 Point of view 70 Navigation: page and screen 74 Interpretation 40 2 Qualitative Issues Perceptions, conventions, proximity 34 Emotional power 46 (Mis)connotations of form 54 Color and monochrome 78 Information overload 80 Too much information 82 Too many numbers 84 Dimensional comparison 86 The pyramid paradox 88 How big? 90 Substitution 92 Numerical integrity 94 Meaningful numbers 96 Perils of geography 98 Escaping geography 102 Data and form 106 Relative and absolute: ratios of change 108 Multi–axiality 110 Measurement and proportion 114 The grid 118 (Dis)organization and proximity 120 Rational hierarchies 122 An intelligible ballot 124 Understanding audience needs 126 Staging information 128 Synecdoche 130 Is a picture worth 1,000 words? 132 Visualizing regulations 134 Focus and distraction 136 Language and grammar 138 Sans serif 140 Serif 100 Per capita 104 Apples to apples: data scale consistency 116 Organizing response 76 3 Quantitative Issues Dimensionality, comparisons, numbers, scale 112 4 Structure, Organization, Type 142 Font efficiency 144 Typographic differentiation 146 Size matters (weight, too) 148 Legibility 150 Expressive typography 152 5 Finding Your Way? Movement, orientation, situational geography 154 What’s up? Heads up 156 Signs and arrows 158 Scale and adjacency 160 A movement network genealogy 162 Map or diagram? 164 Guiding the traveler, then and now 166 Information release sequence 170 Isochronics 1 172 Analogies in painting and sculpture 174 The road is really straight 176 Transitions and familiarity 178 Service, naming and addressing 180 (Ir)rational innovation 182 Perils of alphabetization 184 The view from below—or above 186 Urban open space 188 6 Documents Stories, inventories, notes 190 Credits 214 Inventory: Paris 216 Inventory: Italy 218 Bibliography 221 Gratitude 222 Index 224 About the author

Joel Katz is an internationally known information designer and authority on the visualization of complex information. He teaches information design at The University of the Arts in Philadelphia. His design work is in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art and the Cooper-Hewitt Museum, New York and the Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo and Kyoto. His photography has been exhibited in the United States and Europe. He is coauthor, with Alina Wheeler, of Brand Atlas and is a founding member of AIGA Philadelphia.