Wonderful books that deal with a variety of topics including design patterns, web usability, accessibility, design business, search engine optimalisation, CSS techniques, … you name it. These sort of publications can change your perception, broaden your views and give you new ideas. In your life as a webdesigner, interface designer, graphic designer, application developer, … you need to learn and absorb relevant knowledge to implement that in your future projects.

I proudly present you Jorge Frascara, professor in visual communication design at the university of Alberta, Department of Art and Design. He wrote the book Designing Effective Communications, Allworth, 2006

and another recent book named Communication Design.

Related to his books, Jorge Frascara was so kind to write especially for fadtastic.

Understanding general principles of design and their currency in new media

As designers we create communicational spaces, that is, we create conditions that favor the interpretation of a message in a certain (approximate) predictable direction. If we come to accept that perfect transmission is not really possible, that interpretation plays a fundamental role in the creation of meaning, and that many uncontrollable forces affect the interaction between people and messages, then we should abandon the exclusivity of the traditional concern with the construction of messages based on some assumed form of logic, and study ways in which, despite the vagaries of interpretation, we could still craft efficient messages. We might better begin to create messages according to criteria that more consciously include the many cognitive styles and contextual conditions that affect communication. This principle is not applicable only to visual communication design. Music, drama and other forms of art deal with the problem of creating and satisfying expectations. The last book I edited, Designing Effective Communications (Allworth, 2006), opens a discussion about how this insight related to the importance of contexts might affect design planning.

While the book deals with very broad concepts that affect every area of communication design, some chapters deal specifically with the electronic media: Ron Wakkary, Kenneth Newby and Marek Hatala, of Simon Fraser University, discuss their project “Ec(h)o”. “Ec(h)o is an ‘augmented reality interface’ that utilizes spatialized soundscapes and a semantic Web approach to information. The initial prototype was designed for a natural history and science museum. The platform was designed to create a museum experience that consists of a physical installation and an interactive virtual layer of three-dimensional soundscapes that are physically mapped to the museum displays. The source for the audio data is digital objects, which originate in a network of object repositories that connect digital content from one museum with other museum collections on the network. The interface enables people to interact with the system by movement and object manipulation-based gestures without the direct use of a computer device.

The challenges in the electronic environment are many, partly because of the novelty of its existence for most of us, and partly because of its inherent opacity. Developing intuitive cues for users to be able to navigate its corridors and understand its codes, and tapping the enormous potential of the medium, are major tasks that require wide interdisciplinary resources and a variety of sensitivities and forms of intelligence. This is a good time for inquisitive designers to build an understandable and useable electronic space.
One of the problems that appears in understanding website structures is information modeling. In the mentioned book, Charles Field (Frogdesign, formerly at Adobe), discusses how many kinds of diagrams have been proposed and used in the Internet and software application design industries, but, could wonders whether it could be possible to devise common methodologies to allow increased understanding and clarity of communication.

Doreen Leo and Jim Budd, of Simon Fraser University, suggest that the success of audience experience is closely linked to the design of the interface with functions to enhance content — both to produce an emotional response and to induce flow. Designing for usability alone is insufficient, because designers must create an experience that keeps viewers coming back for more. Creating an enjoyable, engaging, compelling and memorable interface is essential. Early studies have identified content as the prime attraction. More recent studies, however, suggest that the growing Internet audience is looking for much more — a meaningful interaction.

The real power of interface design resides in the interactive digital tools that can be used to communicate context and meaning in a way other static methods cannot begin to approach. They have the potential to allow an audience to interactively engage with the content of a site at a level of detail and within a context that will help them to come to a deeper understanding of the author’s intentions. By using the emotive capabilities of digital media to tailor the medium, the emotional context of the message remains in sight at all times, regardless of the type of information being presented. In this way we can begin to address the potential of a move from a utilitarian level of communication to a more meaningful and expressive dialogue in the digital environment.

I have elsewhere discussed the peculiarities of electronic media (Communication Design, Allworth, 2004). Design for electronic media has opened a new series of problems. In the interaction with a newspaper, a book or a magazine, we immediately get a sense of the size of the universe we are entering. We can browse it easily, always having a sense of where we are in that universe. The design of interfaces must respond to that need, it must respond to the notions of “where am I?” in the sense of both the profile of the universe where one is and one’s location within it. A major concept within design thinking that comes to play here is the notion of usability, that is, how easy is it to use the device? How much the interface lets me know what is behind the screen, how easy it is to get there, and how easy it is for me to know where I am and how to get back to where I came from.
Conventions in electronic media are still being established, and many of the existing ones are not user-centered. This is a field where it is indispensable to know the language of the audience, and to speak plain language.
It is important to learn how different groups of people use the World Wide Web in different ways. There are, however, several common features. People tend to want to get to wherever they want, easy and fast. Instructions, therefore, must be both clear and brief. Clarity should not be sacrificed for the sake of brevity. One of the interesting things in visual communication design is that it requires judgement at every stage.

We should be aware that people like short cuts. Users should be able to see at a glance where is the “place” they want to go to. The notion of “prospect” is important for the design of interfaces. We are visual animals: all our civilization has been supported by vision, not by sound or smell. The notions of prospect, refuge, and affordance are central for the successful design of interfaces. They respond to three basic human needs: the need to know what surrounds me; the need to know where can I retreat safely to; and the notion of what is there for me. In the case of the computer environment, we need to design in ways that allow people to visualize their location, and the kind of “landscape” that surrounds them. I am not using these metaphors just to be poetic. The importance of metaphors for the development of abstract thinking has been discussed at length.

In sum, human strategies for dealing with information and visual experiences do not change dramatically from medium to medium. Knowledge of perception, cognition and behavior, in sum, all the spectrum of human factors, always comes handy to a designer, regardless of the medium one is working with. The dynamic nature of the electronic media, however, creates interesting challenges, forcing us to test existing design habits and explore the full potential of the media. The usual danger is that, at the beginning of their use, new technologies adopt the form of the older ones they replace, and there is a need for insight and sensitivity to understand the full potential of the new possibilities and to work in them in ways that people can intuitively understand.

written by Jorge Frascara

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