I’m no ___ designer, but I am an Info Designer.
While flipping through the Information Design Source Book, I paused on an airport wayfinding project. A beautiful grid of color and icons captivated me.
Navigational design is one of the few fields I haven’t touched yet. Logos and iconography are rather precise for me, and I’ve never found a project opportunity.
But when I flipped to the next page, this caught my eye: “Having commissioned… a survey among users [it was] discovered, quite surprisingly, that over a quarter of total customer satisfaction stems from a need for orientation and information.”
Based on the survey, they narrowed down the most important locations: 1) gates, 2) airport facilities and 3) ground transportation. “…the Port Authority opted for a brand-new signposting design. Survey findings inspired the designers to divide information into three recognizable groups, differentiated by lucid color coding that would be instantly recognizable.”
All that productive change from a humble survey—a research technique that I already leverage as an information designer.
I realize that I’ve been fixating on wayfinding as output, rather than process—which is my responsibility as the info designer. I’m the one who asks if the design decisions are effective (i.e., they accomplish what they should), if they help people achieve things, if they clarify instead of confuse.
Inherently, an information designer believes that anything can be made better. Focus shifts from final output to process, from assumptions to findings. Info design shines light on insight, rather than trying to act as it. While I was discussing contests with Sheila, she pointed out that they rarely show interest in process and research. And how can you judge a design without knowing the findings behind it? (Though I begrudgingly continue to submit to contests.)
Even then, documenting and presenting process is its own challenge. How do we turn scribbles and surveys into appealing—and insightful—visuals? What would effective process presentation look like? Sheila’s Information Design Unbound and Making Sense of Field Research have a few case studies that go deeper into process, research, and findings-as-foundation that are a good start for anyone interested.
