Hi all,
I'd like to reinforce what Karel has just said and point to some of the general principles which have guided research in information design (id) following on from these general principles.
One of the seminal influences on contemporary id research is a paper by:
Michael Macdonald Ross
How numbers are shown: A Review of Research on the Presentation of Quantitative Data in Texts
Educational Technology Research and Development, Volume 25, Number 4 / December, 1977.
In this review, Michael looks at research done by psychologists and others on the presentation of quantitative data, and compares this research with the advice already available from craft practitioners in the field. Over and over again he shows that the findings from research do little more than confirm the rules of thumb from the craft practitioners. Most significantly, he shows that when the 'psychologists' use graphic material that does not follow the advice and use the skill of craft practitioners, the results are worse than they otherwise would be. Michael's conclusions have been replicated many times since then in many areas of information design.
Simply put, the principle that emerges is that for research to be useful to designers it must start from a deep practical appreciation and application of the relevant craft skills, and build on these. Sadly, in most of the research I review, this is not the case. Karel will confirm this, I know, in his own work. We can point to hundreds of published, peer-reviewed papers, most recently in the health information area, that do not follow this principle.
From an information design perspective, these papers would never have been published as contributions to knowledge. It is therefore not surprising that practicing designers pay little attention to this work. They are, by and large, exercising sound judgement.
David
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blog: www.communication.org.au/dsblog
web: http://www.communication.org.au
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