Information Ecologies

I want to try to explain how I came to think about technology and people ecologically through my interactions with reference librarians. And I want to mention some of the touchstones that led to the concept of information ecologies. In looking at the library, what struck me as an outsider and anthropologist studying the work practices of reference librarians, was first, the very congenial mix of human and technical resources. Second, I was very impressed with the way libraries are run through a very clear application of values. So, for example, values such as service to clients, cost effectiveness, the timely delivery of information, open access to information. And finally, I was really struck by the attention that reference librarians pay to the specifics of clients' situations and needs.

Nardi, Bonnie A. Library of Congress (1998). Articles>Information Design>Cultural Theory

Information Engineering: A New Approach to Technical Communication  

Information Engineering (IE) is a revolutionary new methodology for designing and delivering information to users of technical products. To provide services that truly add value to their organizations and to their users, technical communicators must transcend the mundane tasks of creating manuals, online help systems, and training. Information Engineering replaces these activities with more proactive methods that measure, minimize, and optimize the delivery of information.

Bowie, John S. STC Proceedings (1996). Articles>Information Design

Information Engineering for the 21st Century  

Bowie urges technical communicators to spend less time creating documentation and more time designing products that people can use intuitively.

Bowie, John S. Intercom (2003). Articles>Information Design>User Centered Design>Usability

Information Format Trends

On-demand printing, easy low-cost Web storefronts, and simple payment processing provide unprecedented methods and opportunities for technical writers to produce small, focused documentation for specific audiences. Seemingly all that is missing is the motivation.

Meyer, Gordon R. Usable Help (2003). Careers>Information Design>Writing>Technical Writing

Information Graphics at the Boston Globe: From Concept to Execution    

Over the past decade, information graphics have become an increasingly important part of newspaper coverage. While graphics have traditionally played a supporting role to content determined by reporters and editors, some newspapers take a more aggressive approach in reporting and creating information graphics. At the Boston Globe, a conscious effort has been made to encourage artists to report the material for their graphics, and to seek greater collaboration with reporters, editors, and photographers. In our best efforts, this allows us to discuss how to bring words, diagrams, illustrations, and photographs together in evocative information packages. The Globe's specialized beats include four reporters who work on health-related issues full time. Because our eight-person graphics department is responsible for nearly all diagrams, charts, and graphics in the newspaper, it is difficult for us to match a reporter's expertise in any one area.

McNaughton, Sean. Technical Communication Online (1998). Design>Graphic Design>Information Design>Technical Illustration

Information Interaction Design: A Unified Field Theory of Design

One of the most important skills for almost everyone to have in the next decade and beyond will be those that allow us to create valuable, compelling, and empowering information and experiences for others. To do this, we must learn existing ways of organizing and presenting data and information and develop new ones. Whether our communication tools are traditional print products, electronic products, broadcast programming, interactive experiences, or live performances makes little difference. Nor does it matter if we are employing physical or electronic devices or our own bodies and voices. The process of creating is roughly the same in any medium. The processes involved in solving problems, responding to audiences, and communicating to others are similar enough to consider them identical for the purposes of this paper. These issues apply across all types of media and experiences, because they directly address the phenomena of information overload, information anxiety, media literacy, media immersion, and tec

Shedroff, Nathan. nathan.com (1995). Design>Information Design

Information Landscapes of Ordinary Spaces in Ordinary Time  

Communication designers undergo passages of the familiar, that is, the daily engagement with a milieu of spaces: rooms, corridors, intersections, tunnels, bridges, byways, etc. These are ordinary spaces in ordinary time. Such spaces are at the core of everyday life, for they are a constant presence. This fact makes such spaces conducive to oversight, passing over as opposed to passing through. However, their familiarity does not negate their importance.

Burgos, Nate. University of Alberta (2003). Articles>Information Design

Information Layering: bedarfsspezifisch informieren

Wenn Sie diesen Absatz lesen, sind Sie bereits mittendrin: im "Information Layering". Ihr Informationsbedarf: herauszufinden, ob sich die Lektüre dieses Artikels lohnt. Dazu gibt der erste, layouttechnisch hervorgehobene Absatz einen kurzen Eindruck vom Inhalt. Das erspart es Ihnen den kompletten Artikel zu überfliegen. Die Information "um was geht es?" steht vom Rest losgelöst auf einer eigenen Ebene – englisch: "layer". Während dieses einfache Beispiel seit Jahrzehnten in jeder Zeitung funktioniert, bieten moderne Online-Medien noch viel mehr Möglichkeiten Relevantes von Irrelevantem zu trennen.

Achtelig, Marc. indoition engineering (2005). (German) Articles>Information Design>Help>Hypertext

An Information Make-Over for Performance Centered Design  

Technical communicators have long harbored a secret that we are reluctant to admit to outsiders: Users don’t like reading manuals. They do it only as a last resort. Even online help systems, which we originally hoped would be easier to use, have not met with great enthusiasm among users. It’s an all-too-common dilemma – there is a lot of information that could be explained, but users struggle along as best they can without it. Part of the problem has always been that users are reluctant to leave their work to seek information -- and rightly so. They have work to do and deadlines to meet. Even if your manual or online help contains a wealth of useful information, it takes them away from their work and interrupts their train of thought. If they do try to use it, the help window typically overlays the interface and adds its own set of navigation, resizing, and searching issues.

Battle, Lisa H. STC Proceedings (2000). Presentations>Documentation>Information Design

The Information Management Model  

Our grasp of single-sourcing has come a long way in the past few years. This is thanks in part to technology that makes it easier to reuse content and in part to our pundits that introduce new ideas into our community. However the practice of single-sourcing is not new. For decades other industries, such as manufacturing and software engineering, have been producing components designed to be reused in products across their companies and their industries. What we lack that has made single-sourcing successful in other domains is a common standard for the components. To reach any real measure of success, we must seek to standardize how we manage information. The Information Management Model is an idea that aims to take a step in that direction.

Hanna, Rob. STC Proceedings (2005). Articles>Knowledge Management>Information Design

Information Modeling  

Information models are a critical component of single-sourcing, enterprise content management, and dynamic content management. This session explains how to design information models, including information product models and element models. It also explains the role of metadata and how to effectively design it.

Rockley, Ann. STC Proceedings (2002). Design>Content Management>Information Design>Metadata

Information Modeling: A Practical Approach  

Information models are a critical component of single sourcing, enterprise content management, and dynamic content management. The information model is your blueprint for the effective writing, structuring, and delivery of reusable content. This session explains how to design information models, including information product models and element models. It also explains the role of metadata and how to effectively design it.

Rockley, Ann. STC Proceedings (2003). Articles>Information Design>Content Management>Project Management

Information Modeling for Single Sourcing  

Single sourcing involves identifying all information requirements up front, then developing them from a single source. Information is broken down into elements, which are reused wherever they are required. Information models identify to writers all the required elements, how to structure them, and how to reuse them. This paper describes the process of information modeling.

Kostur, Pamela and Ann Rockley. STC Proceedings (2001). Presentations>Information Design>Single Sourcing

Information Models and XML  

The defining feature of XML is the ability to specify your own tags. Learn about what to look for in an XML information model and what a technical communicator can contribute to an XML documentation team.

Baril, France. Intercom (2006). Articles>Information Design>XML

Information Models for Web Structure

All destinations on the World Wide Web are constructed from information. Yet, these destinations seem to be physical, and, as a result, must be structured to help users locate and navigate the information in an intuitive way. Imaginary maps called information models represent the varying ways in which information can be structured.

Watson, James. Writer's Block (1998). Design>Information Design>Web Design

Information on the Assembly Line: A Review of Information Design As It Relates to Technical Communication

As we begin the twenty-first century, the assembly line model is once again being put into practice in the global industry. This time, however, the materials that companies are working with are more intangible; information and development processes are now being analyzed and broken down to their most basic components, as companies try to streamline production processes and reuse content as much as they can.

Nichols, Jason. University of Central Florida (2002). Books>Information Design>TC

Information Planning for Successful Online Documentation  

Creating an information plan should be the first phase of any publication development life cycle, whether hard copy or online. The plan is a tool for reporting the results of your research about your audience, their tasks, the market, and the product. The plan presents the basic organization and content of the publications you intend to build, effectively directing the documentation team to produce a publication with very specific goals in mind.

Stevens, Dawn M. STC Proceedings (1996). Articles>Information Design>Management>Documentation

Information Politics: The Story of an Emerging Metadata Standard  

This is the story of how one commercial metadata standard — XBRL, or Extensible Business Reporting Language — has attracted the participation and support of some of the world’s most powerful public and private organizations. It begins with a look at the nature and use of financial information in today's Internet-enabled environment and discusses three information use patterns: Transaction, retrieval, and reporting. While numerous, sometimes competing standards have been developed for transaction information, XBRL alone has emerged to address reporting formats. Today, the XBRL specification has wide support across the accounting, financial, and regulatory communities. This has come about largely through the efforts of the standards’ governing board, which has pursued a strategy of careful definition of market scope, deliberate courtship of important allies, and establishment of a culture of aggressive outreach for members. The results are impressive. Members of the organization are now positioned to take greatest advantage of a number of new entrepreneurial opportunities that have been created by the organization. Additionally, some participants are now representing the XBRL metadata standard as a key tool for the restoration of public confidence in the scandal-rocked accounting and investment industries. This may create a serious problem for researchers and investors as unaudited financial statements formatted in XBRL proliferate on the Web sites of corporations anxious to demonstrate a commitment to what some are calling 'the new transparency.'

Starr, Joan. First Monday (2003). Design>Information Design>Standards>Metadata

Information Process Reengineering  

Information process reengineering means making fundamental changes to how you create, maintain, deliver, and distribute information so that you meet business objectives. It is not simply incorporating new tools or technologies into a current information development and distribution environment. The changes made as a result of reengineering are much broader and more significant; they are revolutionary. The phases you move through as you reengineer are not revolutionary. In fact, to many the phases are quite familiar: design, pilot, refine, roll out. It’s not how you approach reengineering but rather what you end up with when you’re done that revolutionizes your business.

Currie, Cynthia C. and J. Vallone. STC Proceedings (1994). Articles>Information Design>Workflow

Information Resources for Information Professionals

This is a guide to resources information professionals use when problem solving or learn more about ourselves as a profession.

Ryan, Joe. Syracuse University (1995). Resources>Directories>Information Design

An Information Retrieval Using Conceptual Index Term For Technical Paper on Digital Library

This paper presents a method for semantic Information Retrieval(IR) which is implemented on Digital Library. It is well known that Digital Library should have the IR system that user may automatically access every kind of media from anywhere. However, no improvement is made for the retrieval errors based on individual differences of user's request. This is one of the significant problem for the searching efficiency of IR. Our approach does not use the request itself but the concepts. This makes it possible to retrieve semantic information not merely to compare with the word strings of the request.

Horii, Chinatsu, Masakazu Imai and Kunihiro Chihara. ISRDP in Digital Libraries (1997). Articles>Information Design

The Information Revolution

Nobody is offering courses in how to prepare hypermedia, nor are there a large number of jobs available for hypermedia authors. As we begin to come up against the limits imposed by the volume of existing knowledge, we will eventually be forced to place more importance on managing our information explosion.

Hart, Geoffrey J.S. Geoff-Hart.com (1988). Articles>Information Design>Hypertext

Information Specialists at the Intersection of Information Architecture and Usability

Discusses the intersection of information architecture (IA) and usability.

Head, Alison J. Florida State University (2001). Articles>Information Design>Usability

Information Visualization: Failed Experiment or Future Revolution?  

Information visualization (infoviz, for short) has been dismissed by many information architects as a good idea that hasn't panned out—a failed experiment. Now failure is a strong word that closes a lot of doors, and information architects like to keep their options open, so the preferred phrasing is 'I'm skeptical about information visualization's value proposition' or 'I'll believe it when I see it' or something like that.

Fast, Karl. IAsummit (2004). Design>Information Design>Graphic Design

InformationDesign

InformationDesign.org is managed by the same people who run the InfoDesign and InfoDesign-Cafe email discussion lists. We aim to turn this site into a reference hub for web-sites, organisations, conferences and other resources of interest to information designers, and have begun by providing the links on the page below. With the help of volunteers, we hope to add more resources soon...

InformationDesign. Design>Information Design