Design Matters

Information Design transforms data into clear, meaningful, easily-accessed information. It originally derived its techniques from graphic design, cognitive psychology, human factors research, and industrial design; and continues to draw from these and any other field that provides insight into how humans assimilate and understand information and the media through which it is conveyed.

Erik notes: “I do not know the full history of this term, but I do know that I worked for a group that had ID in its title and in my job title a good 18 years ago (comment made in 2005). It usually takes a long time for a term like this to sneak into actual job titles, so it has obliviously been around awhile.”

According to William Safire writing in the New York Times on May 6, 2001, Richard Saul Wurman says he invented the term information architect in 1975, when he was national chairman of the American Institute of Architects convention, called “The Architecture of Information.” The source of this information was on the ASIST SIG-IA website: http://www.asis.org/SIG/SIGIA/definition.html