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This, in short, is how you have organized the data you intend to present. "The Data" referred to here is information,
of any kind, that you wish to communicate. Usually this amounts to either text or images, though it
could be anything that provides information in some sort of sensory way to the visitor.
The first, most important job in information design is to categorize your units of information. The way that you
do this will necessarily be driven by the purpose of your site, and, perhaps more importantly,
your target audience. Before you even begin to architect the desired
interaction paths and GUI, you need to know what sort of conceptual "chunks" your
information can be broken down into.
Once this is done, those chunks need to be arranged in relation to one another. Is your "products" chunk a subset of
your "services" chunk, or are they co-equal and separate? That's just an example, and some relationships you come
up with may never be overtly demonstrated to the end user, but knowing them will drive the successful creation
of the rest of the site.
Once the categorization issues are taken care of, it is important to look at the specific pieces of data themselves.
Are they efficently constructed? Do you have a 300 kilobyte graphic illustrating a point that could be communicated
more effectively with one line of text? Or, conversely, do you have four pages of text that could be replaced with a
single information graphic? This is a crucial, but tricky, point in the process of efficient information design, and the
person best qualified to know is you. Here are a few basic guidelines:
- Be visual. If you are trying to communicate a point that could be translated into some kind
of visual form, do it. People will always pay closer attention to an image, and will likely retain more of the
information they glean from it.
- Be professional. Have your copy and graphics professionally created,
if possible. Don't just whip out Microsoft Paint and draw a box with an arrow
pointing to it as your graphic. This point over-rules the first. Because people
pay more attention to graphics, a poorly designed image will spell your doom much
more quickly than text of the same ilk.
- Be original. Don't steal images, text, or ideas. If you've seen it before, someone else has too. This sort of thing
kills your credibility.
- Be simple. If you have text that requires the visitor to scroll down for 24 pages (or click "next" 24 times), you may
want to re-think your information design. The same goes for graphics. Keep them basic. If you absolutely must have
complex visuals or lengthy text, provide a summary before you subject your visitors to the eye strain.
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