Information Design Journal - Volume 4, Issue 1, 1984

This article reports a recent visit of the author to Pakistan, where he taught graphic design, a subject barely established and under threat. The author regrets the tendency to borrow Western styles of graphic design and emphasises the importance of appreciating and developing the local visual culture, a particularly rich and ancient one in the case of Pakistan.

In this article a provisional set of eight criteria is proposed for the analysis and the design of texts in the field of public information. To test the value of this set of criteria, an experiment was carried out concerning a Dutch leaflet on a regulation on Rent Rebate Grants. Rewriting the leaflet text did not produce satisfying results, possibly due to the high complexity of the regulation. Nevertheless, it seems that the criteria might be a useful contribution to the discussion on guidelines for textwriters.

Simplicity has become a generally accepted criterion of text quality. Putting forward philosophical, linguistic, social, historical and other implications while defining this term, the author points out that the past predominance of authorimposed simplicity must, in the technological future, give way to a simplicity depending on the users' needs.

This paper overviews the early developments of statistical graphics

This paper describes a case history of the design of a government form. In particular, three kinds of problem are identified and discussed: contextual problems of relevance and interpretation; problems of reading sequence and conditional branching instructions; and a range of typographic problems. Typography is seen as a particularly important way of signalling the information structure of forms, and typographic techniques are discussed in some detail.

Following a brief rationale and description of the technology of advance organizers, a visual adaptation, graphic organizers, is set forth. The procedure for constructing graphic organizers, as well as numerous examples, is provided. Three classroom-based validation studies support the use of graphic organizers for facilitation of recall.

This paper argues that Sharrock and Anderson's work on hospital directional signs can be extended to encompass the function of the sign in the micropolitics of everyday life. One consequence of this fractional shift is that 'reading signs' is deemphasised as a study topic and partially replaced by the question of 'being seen to read signs'. Some conclusions are drawn which cast light on how the 'model of the actor' in sign-studies can be widened without moving beyond the sphere of 'the practical' demarcated by Sharrock and Anderson.