veritas confidential making sense of information shashank deshpande veritas software december, 2003...

VERITAS Confidential

Making Sense of Information

Shashank Deshpande

VERITAS Software

December, 2003

5th STC Conference, Pune

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Agenda

• Information Design (ID) basics• Types of ID and Data presentation• Principles of ID• Examples• Q & A• Exercises• Presentations

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Information Overload

• Information in our day-to-day lives:• Bills – Electricity, Telephone, Tax, …• Financial – Salary & Bank

statements, Stocks, …• Work – Meetings, Telephone calls,

mails, …• Homes – TV, Appliances,

Newspaper, Magazines, Books, …• Streets – Billboards, signage, public

information, …

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Information design

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Information Design basics

• The process of organizing information and presenting it to the user in the most meaningful format.

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Information design basics

• It deals with Users, Context and Data content• Showing meaning through comparison,

similarity, contrast, aggregation, differentiation, and other forms of data relation

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Information design basics

What does these notations mean to you?

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Information design basics

• Visual thinking• It is a Science as

well as an Art• Use graphic

elements like grid, proportions, color, typography and illustrations to convey meaning

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Information design basics

• How human mind ‘understands’ information?• Use user’s mental model

– Tariff card– Bus Ticket– Interactive Time Zone

Viewer

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Information components

• Data– Unstructured facts based on data collection

• Information– Structured data – ordered, categorized or grouped

• Knowledge– Information that is usable

• Wisdom/Intelligence– Capacity to apply knowledge

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Data Presentation types

• Formal– Maps and Plans– Tables– Charts/graphs– Pictures, Illustrations and Drawings– Text– Combinations of the above

• Verbal, Gestures and Body language

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Data Presentation types

• Maps and Plans

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Data Presentation types

• Pictures, Illustrations and Drawings

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Data Presentation types

• Charts and Graphs

Fat

Proteins

Carbohydrates

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Principles of Information Design #1

• Enforce visual comparisons

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Principles of Information Design #2

• Show causality – method, logic or reason

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Principles of Information Design #3

• Show multi-dimensional data– show additional information to help user

understand information– use multiple

stimuli to reinforce the message

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Principles of Information Design #4

• Integrate words, numbers and images

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Principles of Information Design #5

• Work with great content– Analyze the data to show what is most

important– Why does the user need this information –

assist his/her thinking– Quality, relevance and integrity of content

drives information design

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Information Design Process

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ID Process

• Discovery– target audience, messages, needs, desires and

constraints

• Analysis – comprehending, relating, and categorizing information

discovered

• Prototyping– Design decisions and modeling

• Review– Test with target audience

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Knowledge in the Head vs. in the World

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Exercises

• Design display system for railway platforms• Re-design of railway ticket

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Reference Books

• Books by Edward Tufte– The Visual Display of Quantitative Information – Envisioning Information– Visual Explanations: Images and Quantities, Evidence and

Narrative

• Information Architects by Richard Saul Wurman• Understanding Comics and Reinventing Comics by Scott

McCloud• Visual Thinking by Rudolf Arnheim• Information Design: The Knowledge Architect’s Toolkit by

Graziella Tonfoni

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Thanks!

Shashank Deshpande

shashank@veritas.com