Information Design Journal - Volume 26, Issue 2, 2021

About Joanna Suau

Joanna studied English literature and culture at the University of Silesia in Poland, where she was born. She did a technical writing postgraduate degree in the picturesque city of Krakow and moved to the U.K. in 2012, to work for shipping solutions provider Pierbridge, where she mainly focused on user guides and walkthroughs of various types of shipping applications.

Interested in what makes an app tick, Joanna started learning programming language (JavaScript) and explored CSS and HTML in more detail. This is when she discovered her passion for writing clean and appealing developer-oriented documentation, and moved to the start-up company Moltin, to become a part of the Developer Success team.

Joanna has changed industry, and currently works in the field of telecommunication. She works for a messaging services provider, Infobip, contributing content to their robust API solutions.

This study aimed to assess perceptions on the graphical informational materials designed to help in the fight against COVID-19 in Portugal and Brazil. We assessed the perceptions using an online survey incorporating the AttrakDiff2TM questionnaire. The results show that the perception of risk with relation to the COVID-19 pandemic is high among the respondents, and that they believe that they will have mild symptoms if infected by the virus. The results also show that the materials available in these countries were poorly designed and not effective in promoting adequate behaviour change. These findings can contribute to future design projects whose aim is to design risk communication materials to inform and guide people facing health crisis situations.

Infographics are becoming a common tool in the communication of public-health information. However, research-based resources in how to create effective infographics are rare. The application of design principles in the creation of infographics has been shown to more effectively communicate information. Here, the research explores the adherence of 84 research-based infographic design principles on 3 designs of varying levels of application. A multi-method approach, including eye-tracking, was used to record information location efficiency, memorability and user perception. Support was found in favour of utilising design principles in the creation of public health infographics; resulting in improved user opinion and information location.

For some decades, institutions such as galleries, libraries, archives, and museums (often abbreviated as GLAM institutions) have digitized numerous archival documents and made at least parts of these documents publicly available online. However, there is still a shortage of user-friendly and easily accessible interfaces for various user groups, especially regarding collections based on text sources. After a brief introduction to the research area and the project, this paper discusses a visualization and design study based on a selection of digitized archival material from the Ernst von Glasersfeld estate. We present a conceptual outline of this work and examples concerning discourse mapping, the analysis of argumentative structures as well as some didactical approaches. In so doing, conceptual backgrounds, educational material and design principles are outlined. The paper concludes with critical considerations as regards the limitations of the approaches discussed.