Information design is the skill and practice of preparing information so people can use it with efficiency and effectiveness. Information design is the detailed planning of specific information that is to be provided to a particular audience to meet specific objectives. The information designer may or may not have available (or may create) an information architecture that defines the overall pattern or structure that is imposed on the information design and an information plan that defines information units and how they are to be completed. The output of an information design is sometimes expressed in written instructions, plans, sketches, drawings, or formal specifications. However, on very small projects, information design is likely to be much less formal.
Information design can be distinguished from information architecture and information planning. In one view, there are three hierarchical levels of activity:
a) Information architecture
which is the general set of ideas about how all information in a given context should be organized. For example, one might say that "All of our product information should serve customer needs as expressed by tasks they have to do with our products," and then develop a pattern that organizes all product information in modules related to customer tasks. The output is an information architecture document.
b) Information planning
which focuses on all aspects required to prepare and support the information of a specific set of products, single product, or event over the product life or other time span. This generally includes understanding the product or event goals, studying the audience and their needs, considering possible information media, defining specific information "units" (books, chapters, Web pages, visualizations, and so forth), specifying the people who will work on them, what the schedule is, and how this work will relate to the work of others. The output is an information plan.
c) Information design
which focuses more narrowly on the information itself in one or more information units, and may encompass the information aspects of industrial design (labels, knobs, and the physical interface), information content design, page design, Web site design, illustration design, typography decisions, and so forth. Information design can be applied to a single work, such as a city map, or to a corporation's entire set of customer information. The output may be part of an information plan, a separate information design document, or simply the designed object or set of objects.
INFORMATION DESIGN STRATEGY
The factors that should be considers are :
a) Learning Theory
b) Learning strategies
c) Learning Styles
A) LEARNING THEORY
A learning theory is an attempt to describe how people and animals learn, thereby helping us understand the inherently complex process of learning.
There are several types of learning theory :
i) Behaviorism
Behavorism as a theory was primarily developed by B. F. Skinner. It loosely encompasses the work of people like Thorndike, Tolman, Guthrie, and Hull. What characterizes these investigators is their underlying assumptions about the process of learning. In essence, three basic assumptions are held to be true. First, learning is manifested by a change in behavior. Second, the environment shapes behavior. And third, the principles of contiguity (how close in time two events must be for a bond to be formed) and reinforcement (any means of increasing the likelihood that an event will be repeated) are central to explaining the learning process. For behaviorism, learning is the acquisition of new behavior through conditioning.
There are two types of possible conditioning:
The behavior becomes a reflex response to stimulus as in the case of Pavlov's Dogs. Pavlov was interested in studying reflexes, when he saw that the dogs drooled without the proper stimulus. Although no food was in sight, their saliva still dribbled. It turned out that the dogs were reacting to lab coats. Every time the dogs were served food, the person who served the food was wearing a lab coat. Therefore, the dogs reacted as if food was on its way whenever they saw a lab coat.In a series of experiments, Pavlov then tried to figure out how these phenomena were linked. For example, he struck a bell when the dogs were fed. If the bell was sounded in close association with their meal, the dogs learned to associate the sound of the bell with food. After a while, at the mere sound of the bell, they responded by drooling.
There is reinforcement of the behavior by a reward or a punishment. The theory of operant conditioning was developed by B.F. Skinner and is known as Radical Behaviorism. The word ‘operant’ refers to the way in which behavior ‘operates on the environment’. Briefly, a behavior may result either in reinforcement, which increases the likelihood of the behavior recurring, or punishment, which decreases the likelihood of the behavior recurring. It is important to note that, a punishment is not considered to be applicable if it does not result in the reduction of the behavior, and so the terms punishment and reinforcement are determined as a result of the actions. Within this framework, behaviorists are particularly interested in measurable changes in behavior.
ii) Cognitive
The earliest challenge to the behaviorists came in a publication in 1929 by Bode, a gestalt psychologist. He criticized behaviorists for being too dependent on overt behavior to explain learning. Gestalt psychologists proposed looking at the patterns rather than isolated events. Gestalt views of learning have been incorporated into what have come to be labeled cognitive theories. Two key assumptions underlie this cognitive approach: (1) that the memory system is an active organized processor of information and (2) that prior knowledge plays an important role in learning. Cognitive theories look beyond behavior to explain brain-based learning. Cognitivists consider how human memory works to promote learning. For example, the physiological processes of sorting and encoding information and events into short term memory and long term memory are important to educators working under the cognitive theory. The major difference between gestaltists and behaviorists is the locus of control over the learning activity: the individual learner is more key to gestaltists than the environment that behaviorists emphasize.
iii) Constructivism
Constructivism views learning as a process in which the learner actively constructs or builds new ideas or concepts based upon current and past knowledge or experience. In other words, "learning involves constructing one's own knowledge from one's own experiences." Constructivist learning, therefore, is a very personal endeavor, whereby internalized concepts, rules, and general principles may consequently be applied in a practical real-world context.
iv) Informal and post-modern theories
Informal theories of education may attempt to break down the learning process in pursuit of practicality. One of these deals with whether learning should take place as a building of concepts toward an overall idea, or the understanding of the overall idea with the details filled in later. Critics believe that trying to teach an overall idea without details (facts) is like trying to build a masonry structure without bricks.Other concerns are the origins of the drive for learning. Some argue that learning is primarily self-regulated, and that the ideal learning situation is one dissimilar to the modern classroom. Critics argue that students learning in isolation fail.
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