Information Design
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9/11 Remembered in Memorials
On the morning of September 11, 2001, I was sitting in a classroom on the first day of the term at Furman University. I had just finished the first course of my senior year – “Freedom in the Western Tradition” – and was settling into my second of the day – “Islam.” The irony of…
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“Out of the Mountain of Despair, a Stone of Hope”
As I entered the Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial in Washington, DC this week, I marched through the mountain of despair. Looking through the gap, all I saw was the east, the water, the promise of life greater than myself. I can only imagine that this was the designer’s intent: that we would walk through the mountain…
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Usability + Design = User Experience
I have stumbled along this sometimes somewhat stony path: from an analysis of users’ perceptions, to the notion of user satisfaction, to user experience… [alongside] some of the attractive theories that may have led me and others astray. -Dr. Jurek Kirakowski Clemson University’s MATRF, Usability Testing Center, and student chapter of the Society for Technical…
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Google Designs a Birthday Experience
In honor of Les Paul‘s birthday, Google has once again re-presented its iconic logo in a new form. This time, the guitar image plays on the user’s command to create an interactive experience. To commemorate the reason for the design, I tried out my guitar skills. They don’t rival Paul’s, but here’s a sample: The design…
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Designing Nutrition
The food pyramid is ancient history. In a move toward better communication, the U.S Department of Agriculture (USDA) ousted the pyramid in favor of “My Plate.” Is this better information design? The new design certainly gives viewers the image of their dinner and a reference point for the way their plates should look. A quick…
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Are newspapers all washed-up?
Even though our copy of the Greenville News was drenched by a downpour this Saturday morning, my commitment to reading the paper did not wane. As I stood in my garage methodically drying wet newsprint with a discarded hair dryer, several things occurred to me: Content is king. As I dried the paper, I crumpled…
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Emotional Design (Norman, 2004)
Emotional Design: Why we love (or hate) everyday things (Donald Norman, 2004) Three basic processes (visceral, emotional, and reflective) guide our interactions with the everyday things in our lives. The visceral reaction is our gut reaction; the behavioral reaction is based upon our ability to use a product; and the reflective process is the cognitive…
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Space in the Margins
When I teach Layout and Design, we spend a great deal of time talking about margins. Margins organize space in a design by allowing “white space” to offset the area containing the content on a page. For example, on this website, you’ll see a margin to the left containing, well, nothing, and a margin to…
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The Laws of Simplicity (Maeda, 2006)
The Laws of Simplicity: Design, technology, business, life by John Maeda (2006) “Simplicity is sanity,” says Patti Palmer, quoting John Maeda. “Maeda is trying to get us to examine ourselves and simplify our lives.” It’s not an attempt to have us root out our craziness, but rather to articulate balance in our lives. One of…
J.A.McArthur 