veritas confidential making sense of information shashank deshpande veritas software december, 2003...
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VERITAS Confidential
Making Sense of Information
Shashank Deshpande
VERITAS Software
December, 2003
5th STC Conference, Pune
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Agenda
• Information Design (ID) basics• Types of ID and Data presentation• Principles of ID• Examples• Q & A• Exercises• Presentations
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Information Overload
• Information in our day-to-day lives:• Bills – Electricity, Telephone, Tax, …• Financial – Salary & Bank
statements, Stocks, …• Work – Meetings, Telephone calls,
mails, …• Homes – TV, Appliances,
Newspaper, Magazines, Books, …• Streets – Billboards, signage, public
information, …
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Information design
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Information Design basics
• The process of organizing information and presenting it to the user in the most meaningful format.
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Information design basics
• It deals with Users, Context and Data content• Showing meaning through comparison,
similarity, contrast, aggregation, differentiation, and other forms of data relation
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Information design basics
What does these notations mean to you?
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Information design basics
• Visual thinking• It is a Science as
well as an Art• Use graphic
elements like grid, proportions, color, typography and illustrations to convey meaning
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Information design basics
• How human mind ‘understands’ information?• Use user’s mental model
– Tariff card– Bus Ticket– Interactive Time Zone
Viewer
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Information components
• Data– Unstructured facts based on data collection
• Information– Structured data – ordered, categorized or grouped
• Knowledge– Information that is usable
• Wisdom/Intelligence– Capacity to apply knowledge
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Data Presentation types
• Formal– Maps and Plans– Tables– Charts/graphs– Pictures, Illustrations and Drawings– Text– Combinations of the above
• Verbal, Gestures and Body language
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Data Presentation types
• Maps and Plans
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Data Presentation types
• Pictures, Illustrations and Drawings
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Data Presentation types
• Charts and Graphs
Fat
Proteins
Carbohydrates
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Principles of Information Design #1
• Enforce visual comparisons
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Principles of Information Design #2
• Show causality – method, logic or reason
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Principles of Information Design #3
• Show multi-dimensional data– show additional information to help user
understand information– use multiple
stimuli to reinforce the message
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Principles of Information Design #4
• Integrate words, numbers and images
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Principles of Information Design #5
• Work with great content– Analyze the data to show what is most
important– Why does the user need this information –
assist his/her thinking– Quality, relevance and integrity of content
drives information design
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Information Design Process
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ID Process
• Discovery– target audience, messages, needs, desires and
constraints
• Analysis – comprehending, relating, and categorizing information
discovered
• Prototyping– Design decisions and modeling
• Review– Test with target audience
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Knowledge in the Head vs. in the World
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Exercises
• Design display system for railway platforms• Re-design of railway ticket
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Reference Books
• Books by Edward Tufte– The Visual Display of Quantitative Information – Envisioning Information– Visual Explanations: Images and Quantities, Evidence and
Narrative
• Information Architects by Richard Saul Wurman• Understanding Comics and Reinventing Comics by Scott
McCloud• Visual Thinking by Rudolf Arnheim• Information Design: The Knowledge Architect’s Toolkit by
Graziella Tonfoni
