Information design

Information design is about presenting information so people can understand it quickly and accurately. While it falls under graphic design, its main goal is clarity and usefulness, not just visual appeal. It overlaps heavily with data visualization, communication design, and information architecture. Per Mollerup described it as "explanation design"—it explains facts about the world, leading to knowledge and informed decisions.

History

The term gained traction in the 1970s as a multidisciplinary field. Graphic designers first used it, and it became established with the Information Design Journal in 1979.

The International Institute for Information Design (IIID) followed in 1987, and the Information Design Association (IDA) in 1991. Edward Tufte’s 1982 book The Visual Display of Quantitative Information was a key milestone. The term "information graphics" is often used by technical communicators and graphic designers focused on diagrams and quantitative data.

In technical communication, information design means building an information structure for a specific audience. This happens at different scales: on a large scale, it involves selecting content and splitting it into separate manuals by audience and purpose; on a medium scale, it means organizing each manual with overviews, concepts, examples, and a clear structure; on a small scale, it covers logical topic flow, emphasis on key points, clear writing, navigation aids, page layout, font choice, and white space.

Information design and information architecture share many similarities. Some graphic designers who specialize in websites call themselves information designers. Globally, the information designer’s skillset often matches that of an information architect in the U.S., especially when organizing and structuring digital content. In computer science and IT, "information design" is sometimes used loosely for information architecture, including data modeling and process analysis.

Early examples

Early examples of information design predate the term. Notable ones include William Playfair’s line, bar, pie, and area charts of England’s trade (1786 and 1801); John Snow’s spot maps tracing a cholera outbreak in 1850s London; Charles Joseph Minard’s 1861 diagram of Napoleon’s Russian campaign; W.E.B. Du Bois’s data visualizations on Black Americans for the 1900 World’s Fair; Otto Neurath’s International Picture Language from the 1930s; and Florence Nightingale’s graphic on army mortality rates. Minard’s diagram plots six variables—army size, location, time, direction, temperature—and tells a story instantly. Edward Tufte called it “the best statistical graphic ever drawn.”

Applications

Information design serves broad audiences (like airport signs) or specific ones (like personalized phone bills). It often aims to build trust in products, such as medicine packaging, industrial instructions, or emergency information.

Signage is a niche called wayfinding. Governments regulate some aspects, like minimum type size in financial fine print, food ingredient labels, and medicine labeling testing. Examples include the U.S. Truth in Lending Act (which introduced the Schumer box for credit card charges) and the European Commission’s 2009 guideline on readability of medicinal product leaflets.

Simplicity

Edward Tufte noted that users of information displays perform analytical tasks like comparing or finding causes. The design should support that task, showing comparisons or causality clearly. Simplicity is a major concern—the goal is clarity and understanding, which may involve reducing messages quantitatively.