1. Information Design Trends Unit 2 Lecture Two: Designing Public Information

2. Information Design Evaluation Detect and correct behavioral and communication problems before the product is released to the public. Front-end  Identify the audiences entering knowledge, biases and attitudes Formative  Pretest users behavior, attention and learning

3. Elements of Communication in Interpretive Settings

4. The Information Field Contains both primary and competing messages. Perceptual filters may distort incoming information. The degree of distortion reflects the organization of information elements, the efficiency of the design and the appropriateness of the media The entire Information Field rarely is under the designer’s control.

5. Design Efficiency The average time it takes a user to find and assimilate a given message.

6. Visitor Attention Raw visit time and frequency statistics do not tell the whole picture. Quality of visitor attention. Mindless Attention  Automatic, Brief, Casual, “Window Shopping” Mindful Attention  Focused, Selective, Comparative Dependant upon Audience Motivation.

7. Reinforcers, Punishers and Motivation Fun and Pretty alone rarely translate into Mindful Attention or user motivation. Reinforcers: Intrinsic – natural parts of most activities, including exploring an environment, meeting challenges, having conversations External – under the control of someone or something outside the self Punishers: Aversive stimuli that reduce the frequency of associated behaviors when they are presented

8. Contingencies A contingency is a one-way, dependent relationship between a given behavior and its consequence. Most contingencies are natural aspects of human activities and interactions. The Designer does not need to manufacture contingencies in order to take advantage of them.

9. Goal-Centered Strategies An explicit goal can promote Mindful Attention to unfamiliar information. A goal can help a user to integrate new information with existing knowledge, and attitudes. A tangible goal has the advantage of having a clear beginning, a middle, and a definable end.