Information design (also known as 'information architecture') is the study of the details of complex systems. Among these are websites, user interactions, databases, technical writing documentation, and human-computer interfaces.
#29821
Effects of RSVP Display Design on Visual Performance in Accomplishing Dual Tasks with Small Screens 
Rapid serial visual presentation (RSVP) represents a mechanism for exhibiting temporal information instead of spatial information to overcome the limitations of small-screen devices. Previous studies examining this area focused only on information presented by RSVP displays and disregarded changes in the performance of accompanying tasks associated with such displays. Therefore, this investigation performed a dual-task experiment (a search task for static information and a reading task for RSVP display information) to examine the effects of presentation mode (character-by-character, word-by-word, and one-line format), speed (171, 260, 350, and 430 characters per minute, or cpm), and text-flow orientation (vertical and horizontal orientation) of RSVP display information on the visual performance of users during different stages of usage (whether current usage is the first, second, third, fourth, fifth, or eighth day of usage) for a small screen.
Chen, Chien-Hsiung and Yu-Hung Chien. International Journal of Design (2007). Design>User Interface>Information Design>Usability
#26935
This will be the story of my life from the time my boss came to me and said, 'Hey, maybe we could do that Knowledge Base in XML. I hear good things about that XML,' to the time that I figured out everything I needed to know and deployed a fully functional XML knowledge base to the world.
Robotti, Anne. KeyContent.org (2006). Articles>Information Design>XML
#10688
Electronic Publishing of Scientific Manuscripts
To write a chapter about a topic which is so new and developing so rapidly that changes take place just about everyday is an interesting challenge. What I hope to accomplish in these few pages is to explain what electronic publishing is and explore a number of issues associated with this new area of information dissemination. Yes!, this is a new area of dissemination! And perhaps this is the place to start - by defining electronic publishing. Electronic publishing is a new form of communication. Electronic publishing, for the purposes of scholarly scientific presentation of results, is the creation of a scholarly work which is in a totally electronic (non-paper) form from its creation to its publication or dissemination. An electronic journal is a product that was specifically developed and designed for the Internet, a product which is not re-worked printed material that is delivered electronically. As I hope to show in this chapter, electronic journals and electronic publishing is much more than an alternat
Heller, Stephen R. hellers.com. Articles>Scientific Communication>Information Design
#21730
The Elements of User Experience 
The Web was originally conceived as a hypertextual information space; but the development of increasingly sophisticated front- and back-end technologies has fostered its use as a remote software interface.
Garrett, Jesse James. JJG.net (2002). Articles>Information Design>User Experience>Web Design
#24530
Elitism in the Stories of U.S. Art Museums 
Institutions familiar to the public are defined by master narratives that describe their activities and imply who is invited to take part. For art museums in this country, a master narrative of elitism was established in the last century, when museums organized and began building their collections. Because art museums were designed by the rich and subsequently forced to depend on the rich for financial support, the stories of elitism and exclusion have been perpetuated over the years. Whereas little narratives, or local stories, defining the daily operations of museums do not receive attention, stories of exclusive social events and obscure art exhibitions take prominence and discourage the participation of the general public. With diminished funding for museums and fewer courses devoted to art appreciation in public schools, museums will likely be unable to attract wider audiences to support them, and the master narrative will continue to define museums' image.
David, Carol. Journal of Business and Technical Communication (1999). Articles>Information Design>Instructional Design
#23359
Emerging Content Requirements for News Products 
Current trends in online news, and design issues for presentation of news content.
Williams, Howard. IAsummit (2004). Design>Information Design>Journalism
#10427
As the responsibilities of and demand for technical communicators have grown, demand for a new set of skills called information design has emerged. Information design is preparing communication products so that they achieve performance objectives established for them. Although some technical communicators now call themselves information designers, the field originally emerged from architects, graphic designers, and library scientists, and related work by instructional designers. Information designers prepare blueprints for communication products. To do so effectively, they need skills in information design and development, the technology they are communicating, the technology of communication, the industries they are communicating to, and business skills. They must also be comfortable with a variety of media and genres. Moving to information design creates a new career ladder for technical communicators.
Carliner, Saul. Technical Communication Online (2001). Careers>Information Design
#30367
EMPI Digital Library National Convention - 2007 
Established in 2005, KnowGenesis Online Library for Technical Communication (www.knowgenesis.org/tc) is India's first online repository dedicated to accelerate knowledge sharing and promote self-learning in the field of technical communication. The library is available free of cost and require one time free registration to access the available material. The popularity and success rate of the library can be determined by the fact that within a year of its launch, it not only attracted more than 24000 visitors and gained more than 1500 subscribers, but also increased the volume of the hosted content from few documents to more than 2000 important documents, presentations, tutorials and links. KnowGenesis library presents a unique case for repository designers to study the complex design and implementation process that contributed to the stability and overall success rate of the online library. This paper not only shares the designing and implementation challenges faced by the knowgenesis team, but also presents the approach used to match the user requirements with the library design. Based on the lessons learned during the process, the paper also presents specific set of guidelines and recommends methodologies that can provide critical assistance for developing and managing medium and large scale repositories
Kudesia, Saurabh. International Journal for Technical Communication (2007). Presentations>Information Design>Knowledge Management>Technical Writing
#10279
Empirical Evaluation of Concept Mapping: A Job Performance Aid for Writers
The usefulness of concept mapping as a job performance aid for writers of technical documents was examined. Thirty-four writers were randomly assigned to one of two groups. The experimental group received 2 hours of training in the use of concept mapping. Both groups revised the same chapter from a computer manual, and an experienced technical editor blindly evaluated each revision. In part two of the study, revised texts were given to two groups of users. One group received a concept-mapped revision, while the other group received a text revised by a writer who had used conventional revision techniques. Readers' comprehension was tested and compared. Revision time was not significantly different between groups, and the editor's ratings of quality were not different. However, readers' comprehension was significantly higher with the concept-mapped versions. These results suggest that concept mapping is a useful revision tool for writers.
Crandell, Thomas L., Naomi A. Kleid and Candace Soderston. Technical Communication Online (1996). Articles>Information Design>Writing>Assessment
#27919
Enabling Mass Customization for your Technical Communication: a Paradigm Shift
Today technical communication departments are facing the challenge of producing a continuously increasing volume of technical documentation. Indeed, as companies accelerate the pace of new product launches in response to changing markets and competitive forces, so must the technical authors produce more, and faster, the accompanying documentation for these new products. We also recognize that information users are not a uniform group; they have different product knowledge, different backgrounds and may have different reasons for using a product. As such, they need specific, personalized documentation rather than a standard one-size-fits-all document.
Rombauts, Yves. tekom (2005). Articles>Information Design
#26733
Enterprise Agility: SOX and Enterprise Information Integration
The intent of Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX) can be characterized as risk reduction: reduce errors, inhibit fraud, and provide shareholders with transparent equal-access to material knowledge. But implementation is principally procedural controls and documentation, under threat of penalty. The vague parts of SOX are where the real leverage lies: principles of intent, and corporate transparency.
Dove, Rick. Paradigm Shift International (2005). Articles>Knowledge Management>Information Design>Documentation
#30258
Enterprise Architecture Essentials, Part 6: Manageability
Organizations today face the challenge of two important enterprise architecture requirements: the need for agility and the overhead of regulatory governance. These requirements can be seen as mutually antagonistic -- if business processes must be flexible, then governance of those processes may be difficult. This article, part six in a six-part series, explores the notion of using manageability as a key enterprise architecture (EA) quality attribute to solve this problem. EA development is an ongoing process, and the central idea of this article is that by applying manageability as an EA attribute, the organizational processes, systems, and software become manageable.
Morris, Stephen B. IBM (2007). Articles>Content Management>Information Design>Regulation
#28354
Enterprise Information Architecture: A Semantic and Organizational Foundation
People disagree on what happens when IAs grow up, but Tom Reamy offers a foundation for information architecture as it advances, grappling with problems across the enterprise.
Reamy, Tom. Boxes and Arrows (2006). Articles>Information Design>Web Design
#28660
Envisioning the Whole Digital Person
As a human society, we're quite possibly looking at the largest surge of recorded information that has ever taken place, and at this point, we have only the most rudimentary tools for managing all this information--in part because we cannot predict what standards will be in place in 10, 50, or 100 years.
Follett, Jonathan. UXmatters (2007). Articles>User Centered Design>Information Design>Databases
#27286
The Essentials of a Database Quality Process
Many steps are involved in the process of turning an initial concept for a database into a finished product that meets the needs of its user community. In this paper, we describe those steps in the context of a four-phase process with particular emphasis on the quality-related issues that need to be addressed in each phase to ensure that the final product is a high quality database. The basic requirements for a successful database quality process are presented with specific examples drawn from experience gained in the Standard Reference Data Program at the National Institute of Standards and Technology.
Blakeslee, Dorothy M. and John Rumble, Jr. Data Science Journal (2003). Articles>Information Design>Databases>Usability
#20124
The Essentials of WWW Page Design
The World Wide Web (WWW) is undergoing exponential growth. Everyone seems to be moving onto the information superhighway: it’s here, it’s now, and you can learn to drive. But before you buckle up, make sure you understand the basics of Web page design. First, make sure your content is suitable. Next, design an overall structure for your site and provide adequate navigation aids so that people won’t get lost. Use visuals to convey information and keep their size to a manageable level. Finally, set the tone on the home page; 'hook' the viewer into exploring your site.
Sabadosh, Nick and Beth Mazur. STC Proceedings (1996). Design>Web Design>Information Design
#18434
The Ethics of Information Architecture
Are you aware that the practice of information architecture is riddled with powerful moral dilemmas? Do you realize that decisions about labeling and granularity can save or destroy lives? Have you been designing ethical information architectures?
Morville, Peter. Argus Center (2000). Articles>Information Design>Ethics
#26897
Ethics of Online Information Design
The beginning ethical issue of information design is access, which occurs in a unique context for each learner.
Smith, Sue. University of Arizona. Articles>Information Design>Ethics>Online
#23096
Evaluating Information Architecture
This white paper explores the why's, what's, and how's of evaluating a web site's information architecture. It aims to raise consciousness about the evaluation of IA and to provide: 1) Web site owners and other decision-makers with an understanding of evaluation issues; and 2) Information architects with a synthesis of evaluation techniques.
Toub, Steve. Argus Center (2000). Articles>Information Design>Assessment
#19259
An Evaluation of Document Keyphrase Sets
Keywords and keyphrases have many useful roles as document surrogates and descriptors, but the manual production of keyphrase metadata for large digital library collections is at best expensive and time-consuming, and at worst logistically impossible. Algorithms for keyphrase extraction like Kea and Extractor produce a set of phrases that are associated with a document. Though these sets are often utilized as a group, keyphrase extraction is usually evaluated by measuring the quality of individual keyphrases. This paper reports an assessment that asks human assessors to rate entire sets of keyphrases produced by Kea, Extractor and document authors. The results provide further evidence that human assessors rate all three sources highly (with some caveats), but show that the relationship between the quality of the phrases in a set and the set as a whole is not always simple. Choosing the best individual phrases will not necessarily produce the best set; combinations of lesser phrases may result in better overall quality.
Jones, Steve and Gordon W. Paynter. Journal of Digital Information (2003). Design>Web Design>Information Design>Metadata
#27912
In the city of Konstanz on the shores of Lake Constance, Siemens AG manufactures equipment for sorting post. Also at the same location, a team of 16 experts create the corresponding technical documentation. But their work is not restricted to handbooks and CDs. Since ten years, this department, called 'Technical Media', has also been taking care of multimedia and training.
Robers, Ralf. tekom (2006). Articles>Information Design
#25159
Knowledge to help prepare professional time elements.
Kubik, Rick. STC Region 7 Proceedings (2002). Design>Information Design>Graphic Design>Charts and Graphs
#13904
Evolution of the Emergency Medical Services Profession: A Case Study of EMS Run Reports
Often the first of many documents written about patients, the emergency medical service’s run report is a preprinted form on which providers record the events of an emergency. These forms are important analytically because they represent the practices and interests of the multiple professions engaged in caring for critically ill or injured patients. This article examines the historical evolution of a shared medical form and its impact on the professionals who use it.
Munger, Roger H. Technical Communication Quarterly (2000). Design>Information Design>Biomedical
#25655
The Dublin Core is currently the best-developed candidate for a simple resource description model for electronic resources on the Web. It represents the results of a three year process of consensus-building through a series of focussed, invitational workshops involving librarians, digital library researchers, and various content specialists from many countries.
Weibel, Stuart. ISRDP in Digital Libraries (1997). Articles>Information Design>Metadata
#22589
Buzz about the value and implications of XML has reached an all-time high, with lofty claims of its potential to transform business and society, doing everything from simple document formatting to curing the common cold. I don't recommend you empty your medicine cabinet just yet. However, do take seriously the developments surrounding XML and its associated technologies. While XML might not merit all the hyperbole, it remains useful. Knowing how to apply this simple meta-language can help you create solutions that will give you a strong competitive advantage.
Trytten, Chris. FileMaker Advisor (2004). Articles>Information Design>Databases>XML
