Information/Instructional design | Examples

Some examples of Information and Instructional Design are:

Road Signs - Such as traffic lights, hazard and speed signs, road markings provide simple and intuitive signs for driver's.

Maps - Are a visual representation of an area. The map below depicts the City Rail network. The designer has used different colours to differentiate each suburban line and large text to highlight the main stations.

Instruction Manuals - Like assembly guides and how to's provide step by step instructions for solving a particular problem. Below is a guide for performing CPR. Outlined are the steps with the use of both text and images to aid in the explaning the process to the user in order to accomplish the task correctly.

Graphs, charts and tables - Provide a visual representation of data, illustrating important patterns or relationships. User's can spot trends and observe changes as data is altered.

Information/Instructional design | Definition

Information design is the transformation of data into information that is clear, meaningful and easy to understand. The information is designed to be communicated to a particular audience to meet specific objectives with the number one priority of presenting it in the simplest most efficient way that the user can interpret. It is a rapidly growing discipline that draws on typography, graphic design, applied linguistics, applied psychology, applied ergonomics, computing, and other fields.

Instructional Design is the systematic development of instructional specifications using learning and instructional theory to ensure the quality of instruction. In other words it is similar to information design but it deals specifically with the use of instructions. Instructional design involves guiding a user through a particular problem with a series of steps that help them to solve the problem.

Interactive design | Great web design examples

Some examples include:

http://www.creaktif.com/ - a website created by a graphic design studio.

http://www.thewhalehunt.org/ - provides an interesting interface for telling the real life story of a man's whale hunting trip.

www.nissan.com.au/ - Most major car manufacturers now provide an interactive experience through their websites.

Interactive design | Definition

Interactive design is simply the behaviour of products and systems which allows interaction with its users. Also known as interaction design, interactive design attempts to improve communication and interaction between users with the help of evolving technology. Interactive design can also be interpreted as the process of designing a visual application, intended to cater to a specific target audience and/or market. The aim of interaction design was to minimize learning time and to increase the efficiency and accuracy of a task without losing effectiveness. It was designed to reduce user frustration and increase efficiency and satisfaction of users. The director of Interaction Design Institute Ivrea, Gillian Crampton Smith said during an interview on January 30, 2002 that: "If I were to sum up interaction design in a sentence, I would say that it's about shaping our everyday life through digital artifacts - for work, for play, and for entertainment."

Web 2.0 | Examples

Here is a number of examples for Web 2.0:

Some commonly used Web 2.0 applications:

http://www.facebook.com/ - Facebook's mission is to give people the power to share and make the world more open and connected. Millions of people use Facebook everyday to keep up with friends, upload an unlimited number of photos, share links and videos, and learn more about the people they meet.

http://www.wikipedia.com/ - Wikipedia is an online free-content encyclopedia that anyone can edit and has been described as "an effort to create and distribute a multilingual free encyclopedia of the highest quality to every single person on the planet in his or her own language." Wikipedia exists to bring knowledge to everyone who seeks it.

http://www.youtube.com/ - YouTube is a video sharing website where users can upload, view and share video clips.

Web 2.0 | Definition

Web 2.0 is a 'buzzword' used to describe the move from static webpage’s of the past (Web 1.0) to a more user-friendly, people oriented approach where online communities and social networking websites play a greater role. By allowing anyone to contribute to online content the user is an integral part of the data and become a participant of the application by adding, accessing and exchanging information. Web 2.0 Applications can be constantly updated providing a rich user experience.

According Tim O’Reilly Web 2.0 is “the understanding that the network is the platform and on the network is a platform where the rules for business are different, and the cardinal rule is users add value and figuring out how to build databases that get better the more people use them is the secret sauce of every web 2.0 company.”

Web 1.0 VS Web 2.0


Tim O'Reilly TechWebTV Interview