Welcome to Information Design. This course is essentially an examination of the challenges faced by communicators in a technologically mediated world.
There are three texts required for this course.
Johndan Johnson-Eilola. Datacloud: Toward a New Theory of Online Work. 2005.
Donald Krug. Don't Make Me Think: A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability. 2006.
Donald Norman. Emotional Design: Why We Love (or Hate) Everyday Things. 2004.
I may also assign readings from other texts to supplement these course texts. I will notify you of any such additions during class meetings.
Below is the SVSU catalog description of Information Design.
Writing for multimedia. Organization of information for interactive applications. Basic concepts of graphic document design to enhance audience comprehension of information. Explorations of strategies for integrating such elements as text, image, and audio.
Although this is certainly a course that asks you to consider what it means to communicate in a technologically rich context, this course is driven less by technological know-how than it is by critical thinking. Increasingly, software is designed to serve the notion that "any idiot" can manage a template and a spell-checker, so why would we need information design specialists?
Why indeed. It is your primary goal here to figure out how such work fits into your goals as professional.
Don't forget to check out these essential pages.
course policies. This is an absolute must-read document. The contents may prove critical to your success in the course.
guide to succeeding in my writing/design courses. This document describes the general philosophy that provides structure and context for my courses, and as such provides suggestions for how you can succeed in this course.
guidelines for submitting assignments. The tag-line is self-explanatory.