Information sources that have the power to impact our day-to-day lives on topics such as global and domestic politics, health, the economy, and the environment, are now readily available online. The best information design work is still primarily relegated to obscure journals and websites, and asks too much comprehension from the viewer. This workshop aims to bring information sources we all care about into the mainstream. Our goal will be to explore how selective streams of information can be sited and expressed in a way that not only creates engagement on the part of the viewer, but inspires action.

Students will work on a semester-long design project based on an information source of their choice. Basic programming (Processing or Actionscript) are required.

The class will be conducted as a design studio with bi-monthly critiques. It will include some seminar discussions and guest visits by experts in the design profession.

Curtis Wong, director of Microsoft’s Next Media Group, has developed a model of experience in 3 levels: engagement, context, and reference. The first (or highest) level of interaction between a viewer and an object such as a work of art or a source of information is engagement. After the viewer is engaged, he is predisposed to receiving contextual information about the work of art or source of information. And only after the viewer has reached the context level of interaction, is he receptive to deeper and more thorough reference content.

The most successful information experiences out there today seem to fall in the reference category. The viewer is launched into a sophisticated information application with a vast resource of data, but does not know how to connect to the data or how to make it relevant to his life. Our goal for the semester will be to achieve such a high level of engagement in our information experiences that our target audiences will understand how the information connects to their lives and will be inspired to take some kind of related and constructive action.

This semester, each student will select a source of information to work with that he or she cares about. The information source should be related to a specific time-based event. During the course of the semester, students will create a compelling expression of that information that effectively tells a story about the selected source. Special consideration will be given to the form and siting (or location) of this representation. Possibilities for the form are open. They can be anything from a screen-based interactive, to a series of print pieces, to a haptic device or lighting installation.