Information / Instructional Design

What is Information / Instructional Design?

Information design is any kind of design created to inform responders of something in order for them to understand and derive some knowledge from it. With this idea in mind, instructional design is a form of design that is created to make the responder interact to learn the information, not simply just view. Instructional design is therefore a system of displaying information through engaging users to interact in order to learn and not simply view.


Some Examples of information and instructional design:


Quake Quiz SF

This website is based upon teaching the people of San Francisco what to do during an earthquake. They achieve this by creating an interface with 6 different common situations and then asks the user what they should do allowing 3 multiple choice answers, after answered correctly the user is given tips on how to be prepared for that particular situation by clicking on icons surrounding the character. The website is extremely helpful and does not overload the user with information but gives them just what they need to better prepare for earthquakes.


Try Drugs

This website offers to inform the public of the harmful nature of illegal drugs and their effects on our minds and bodies. On each page of the site a different drug is being represented, the first page for example is marijuana, because of this the page explains the effects of slowing down the mind, to represent this happening, the mouse movement speed is decreased and sluggish as well as a slowed down background music giving the user a sense of what the drug does and how difficult it is to click the continue button.


State Of Salmon

This website shows a series of statistics, maps and information on the sockeye salmon and how close it is to extinction. This website is very informative displaying an interactive map that can display information depending on different factors such as danger to extinction or specific locations, sections of the map can be then clicked into to find out more information on the incline or decline of salmon in that specific location. Various other maps and statistics are also found and can be interacted with to find out information on the sockeye salmon including a historical breakdown and current trends.

Moodboard

Step By Step - How To Make Toast

1. Place toast on a flat hard surface
2. Plug toaster into a power point
3. Turn on power at the power point
4. Open loaf of bread
5.1 Check Bread for an expiry date and mould
5.2 If the bread is out of date or has mould, replace with fresh bread
6. Place desired amount of slices of bread in toaster
7. Adjust the settings to user’s preference
8. Depress toaster leaver
10. Wait for bread to cook (has the toast popped up yet?)
11. Check to see if toast is cool enough to remove. (is it cool enough?)
12. Remove toast from toaster.
13. End

Storyboard Images

Here are the first 3 steps in my storyboard process. The interactive elements are the arrows at the top of the screen allowing people to move to the next or previous page, when they move to the next page a new step is then listed and the bar at the bottom showing thier process moves accross.

Interactive Design

what is Interactive Design?
Wikipedia states that Interactive Design is:

the study of devices with which a user can interact, in particular computer users. The practice typically centers around "embedding information technology into the ambient social complexities of the physical world."(1)

in my own words this definition is simply design that facilitates interactivity, making the user interact with whatever the design is to allow their own self control and choice to be factors of its use.


Some examples of interactive design websites:

Crappy Cat

Crappy Cat is an online game where the user takes control of a strange looking cat that the user then directs  through a 2d landscape, when the cat is placed on any of the multiple x spots on the ground a specific interaction with the landscape occurs. This website was one of the winners of the 2009 Interactive Annual Award.

Auditorium

Auditorium is another online interactive game in which users are made to direct a line of light over various bars in order to create a coherent piece of music, each bar represents one instrument and once a path between all is established the completed music piece is playing and the user advances to the next level. This was also a winner of the 2009 Interactive Annual Award.

Corona Beach Website

The Corona Beach website offers users a virtual beach to explore, by clicking and dragging in any direction the point of view changes revealing more areas that can be clicked and entered to find out more information about products, competitions and games.This was also a winner of the 2009 Interactive Annual Award.



1 - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interaction_design#cite_note-0

Toast Flowchart

What is Web 2.0?

To understand what web 2.0 is, first we should take a look at defining web 1.0. Web 1.0 is a designer and user relationship which has a designer creating a website which displays some kind of information and then the user reading/viewing the information.

Web 2.0 on the other hand has a relationship in which the designer creates a system allowing the users to become designers as well, uploading and changing their own content perpetuating the circle of information exchange. Examples of a web 2.0 website would be blogs, social networking sites (Facebook, Myspace ect.), Wikipedia, eBay or DeviantART , generally these websites would be nothing without a large user base to drive them.


Facebook
facebook is a social networking website designed to allow users to create their own profiles, upload pictures, chat and interact within a global community of people.


Wikipedia
Wikipedia is a free online encyclopedia that's content is created and edited by users allowing the knowledge content to be continually changing and updating.


eBay
eBay is an online shopping system that allows users to post items that they wish to sell and then have other users bid to buy for, there is also sometimes a "buy now" option that negates the auction to pay a specific price instead. this website has lead people to be able to start online businesses and allowed pre-existing shops to expand to a larger online community.