information interaction design

a unified field theory of design

The most important skills in the next decade and beyond will be the abilities to create information and experiences for others that are valuable, compelling, and empowering. To do this, we must learn new ways of organizing and presenting data and information. Whether this is done for traditional print products, electronic products, interactive experiences or live performances makes little difference. Neither does it matter if we are employing physical or electronic devices or our own bodies and voices. The process of creating anything is roughly the same. The processes of solving problems, responding to audiences, and communicating to others, in any medium, are enough alike to consider identical for the purposes of this article. These issues apply across media and experiences. This is because it addresses the phenomena of information overload, information anxiety, media literacy, media immersion, and technological overload directly--all of which are important problems that need better solutions.

The intersection of these issues can be addressed by the process of Information Interaction Design, described in this paper. In other circles, it is called simply Information Design, Information Architecture, or Interaction Design. In some circles it is called Instructional Design. In others, Common Sense. What everyone needs to do constantly is create or engineer interactions, presentations, and experiences with information for others. This need is the basis for a production process for every book, directory, catalog, newspaper, or television program. It can also be the basis for producing every CD-ROM, kiosk, presentation, game, and online service, as well as every dance, music, comedy, or theater performance. The traditions and technologies change with every venue, but the process does not--or should not.

Information Interaction Design is the intersection of three different disciplines: Information Design, Interaction Design, and Sensorial Design. Information Design's roots are in the publishing and graphic design worlds, although few people in these worlds intentionally practice them. This discipline addresses the organization and presentation of data--thus the transformation of data into valuable, meaningful information. It is something that everyone has always done to some extent, mostly unconsciously, but has only recently been identified as a discipline in itself. Unfortunately, there are precious few sources of information to learn about the practice of Information Design.

Interaction Design (in essence, story creating and storytelling) is also an ancient art, but one that is required to be updated to reflect new technologies and new capabilities. In particular, the demands of interactivity are often misunderstood by all but the most experienced storytellers and performers. How these skills are expressed through interactive technologies and what demands and interests audiences will have for these remains to be seen. Consequently, there are also few sources of information about these issues and techniques used to meet them. This is a new territory that is desperate for some new ideas. It is also the most critical component to the success of interactive products.

Sensorial Design is simply the employing of all techniques with which we communicate to others, involving all senses. Visual Design disciplines such as Graphic Design, Videography, Cinematography, Typography, Illustration, and Photography are usually the first to be recognized and employed, but just as important are the disciplines that communicate through other senses. Sound Design and Engineering, Musical Performance, and Vocal talents are also useful in the appropriate circumstances. In fact, sometimes they are the only appropriate media to create in. Tactile, Olfactory, and kinesthetic senses are rarely employed (often due to technological or market constraints) but are just as valid and can add enriching detail to an experience.

The disciplines of these media are worlds unto themselves, with their own histories, traditions, and concerns. To learn each well takes time and skill and is more than can be expected of any one person. Therefore, it is important for everyone to learn, at least, an overview of the important issues and techniques of each discipline so that these can be employed correctly and everyone involved with a project can communicate effectively. In each of these areas, then, experienced experts should participate in employing the various media in support of a project's information and interaction goals and messages.

Information Design

Information Design comes mostly from a tradition of print publishing and graphic design. While few designers have been explicitly concerned with the issues paramount to clear communication--Organization, Presentation, Goals and Messages, Clarity, and Complexity to name a few--these functions have been addressed at least on a subconscious level. Information Design doesn't banish aesthetic concerns but it doesn't put them at the top of the list either. Most important to communication are the issues listed above. However, there is also no reason why elegantly structured, or well architected, data can't also be beautiful. Information Design isn't meant to replace Graphic and other Visual Disciplines, but to be the structure for which these capabilities are expressed.

An understanding of understanding must begin with the view that what most of us deal with everyday--the vast amount of things that bombard our senses--is not information at all, but merely data. Richard Saul Wurman expresses this well. Data is fairly worthless to most of us. It is the product of research or creation (such as writing) but it is not an adequate product. To have value, it must be organized, transformed, and presented in a way that gives it meaning--that makes it valuable. This is what Information Design helps us do.

Information, by the way, is not the end of the process of design. Just as data can be transformed into meaningful information, so can information be transformed into knowledge and then further, into wisdom. Knowledge is a phenomenon that we can build for others just as we can build information for others from data. This is done through Interaction Design and the creation of experiences. This will be discussed more in the next section, but think for a moment how hard it is to build a meaningful experience for someone else. It is first necessary to understanding who that audience is, what their needs, interests, and expectations are, and how to reach them. Brenda Laurel states that interactive media "is not about information, it is about experience." She is absolutely correct, but I would argue that in creating these experiences for others (and even for ourselves to some degree), we must understand the information (and data) with which we use to build these experiences.

Data

Data is the product of research, creation, gathering, and discovery. It is the raw material we find or create that we use to build our communications. Most of what we experience, unfortunately, is merely data. Data is fairly easy to distinguish: it is usually boring or incomplete. It isn't valuable as communication because it isn't a complete message. Most of the technology we call "Information Technology" is in fact, only Data Technology because it does not deal with the issues or capabilities of transforming data into information. Mostly, these technologies are simply concerned with storage, processing, and transmission.

Data is useful only to producers, or to anyone playing a production role (those who know how to impose meaningful structures on data). Everyone does this to some extent, whether professional or personally, in print, electronic, or spoken forms. This is a misunderstanding often made by producers of products and communications. Too often we deluge our readers, listeners, and participants with data instead of information, leaving them to sort it out and make sense of it. Many providers even brag of the amount of meaningless, contextless data they throw at their customers. CNN, for example, actually calls their bits "factoids" and slides them between otherwise, meaningful presentations.

When creating an experience, try not to throw data at your audience. If you haven't bothered to provide context, why should your audience be interested in the experience or purchase the content?

Information

Information is the first level appropriate to communicate to consumers and audiences. It is the way to communicate thoughtful messages because it requires the relationships and patterns between data to be revealed. Transforming data into information is done by organizing it into a meaningful form, presenting it in meaningful and appropriate ways, and communicating the context around it. These processes are described in more detail below.

Knowledge

Knowledge is the pay-off of any experience. It is the information gained through experiences, whether bad or good. Knowledge is communicated by building compelling interactions with others or with tools so that the patterns and meanings in their information can be learned. There are many types of experience and many levels of categorization. One appropriate to this context is the level of personal knowledge acquired or shared. Some knowledge is very personal, having meaning only to one person because of that person's unique experiences, thoughts, or point of view. Local knowledge is that shared by a few people because of shared experiences, while global knowledge (the other end of the spectrum) is more general and limited and more process-based since it relies on such heavy levels of shared experiences and agreements about communication. This is important because you must take into account the level of knowledge your audience has and the steps needed to transcend your own personal knowledge so that you can communicate effectively to others. It is usually more difficult to communicate to wider audiences because the pool of shared knowledge is less detailed and more generalized.

Knowledge is gained through a process of integration, both in the presentation and in the mind of the participant. Information forms the stimulus of an experience while Wisdom is the understanding of the message gained through the experience. Knowledge is the level we should all target for our communications because it is the one that allows the most valuable messages to be conveyed. It is also the last level which we can directly affect since it is still in the local or global range.

Wisdom

Wisdom is the most vague and intimate of the levels of information. It is much more abstract and philosophical than the other levels and less is known about how to create or affect it. Wisdom is a kind of metaknowledge or processes and relationships about experiences and multiple points of knowledge. It is the result of contemplation, evaluation, retrospection, and interpretation--all of which are particularly personal processes. We cannot create wisdom like we can data, information, and knowledge. We can create experiences that help impart it, and describe processes to use, but ultimately, it is a process that must be performed by one's self. No amount of threat, test, or technology will substitute for a lack of understanding about wisdom or a lack of motivation to explore it.

These levels of information are significant because they define the boundaries with which we can create. While Information Design is most involved in the representation of data as information, Interaction Design is involved in the transformation of Information into compelling experiences. It may be easy to start with the data and its transformation into information (and thus Information Design) before transforming information into experience (Interaction Design).

Organizing Things

The first step in exploring data and transforming it is to play with its organization. This is one of those simple yet crucial processes that seems worthless until you discover something through it that you had never seen before. Realize that the very organization of things affects the way we interpret and understand the separate pieces. Take any set of things: students in a classroom, financials for a company, information about a city, or animals in a zoo. How would you organize these?

Richard Saul Wurman suggests only five ways to organize things but seven is easier for me to describe. Everything (and I mean everything) can be organized in one of these ways: by Alphabet, by Location, by Time, be Continuum, by Number, or by Category. Also, a last way of organizing things can often be Randomly (in other words, by not organizing them). If you can think of another, let us know. Let me describe these a bit.

Alphabets

Just about any book has an alphabetical index. The same is also common for maps. This is because we may know exactly what we are looking for, but not know where it is, or its appropriate name. Alphabetical indexes only work because we have been taught the alphabet early in our educations and it has been reinforced throughout our lives. Otherwise, it is an arbitrary organization and not universally useful as you will find if you ever use a phone directory in a language that uses an alphabet other than the one you were raised with. Many indexes are organized alphabetically but few data products (most Dictionaries and Encyclopedias are exceptions that are solely organized this way. This is because few data have any great meaning based on the first letter of their respective labels. In actuality, the alphabet is a continuum (from A to Z) but it is a special one for the reasons stated above.

Locations

Locations are natural ways of organizing data whose importance lies in its relation or connection to other data. How easy would it be to find the exits to an airplane if they were listed and described in text with no diagram? Why then do most information products not organize things by locations when it would be beneficial? Unfortunately, organizing things by location is not "standard" and producing maps and diagrams is not as easy as simply writing text. However, if you have ever used an atlas or ACCESS travel guide, you know how much better a sense of a place you get when things are oriented by their relationship geographically to other things around them. Consider a subway map that simply listed all of the station stops in sequence versus one that also arranged them in some semblance of the city they served. This may sound obvious (and it should be), but then why do car manuals not organize parts by their location in the car, or medical books by location in the body (the one sure thing you know when you aren't feeling well). All of these, of course, depend on the conceptual framework and messages to be communicated as well as the interests and experiences of the audience.

Time

Organizing things by time may sound obvious for bus and train schedules or historic timelines but it can be just as effective for instructions of any type, for example, cooking, driving, or building. Therefore, time need not be strictly by minutes, but by days, months, years, centuries, processes, or milestones.

Continuums

Any qualitative comparison can be handled in a continuum. All ratings systems, whether numbers of stars or numbers of RBIs indicate a value scale. In addition, arranging items in a continuum indicates that this value scale is the most important aspect of the data. As with any organization of data, the primary mode expresses a different interest and importance than other organizations.

Numbers

I categorize number systems as a separate way of arranging things. Much like an alphabet, numbers are a fairly arbitrary system, usually Base-10, since our species has ten fingers. But unlike alphabets, Base-10 numbers are much more universal (that is to say, global) and combine together in different forms due to mathematical relationships. Because of these relationships, it is common but not necessary for items organized by number to also be organized into a continuum. For example, the Dewey Decimal System used for organizing books in many libraries is a number system that does not represent any magnitude or attribute. It simply assigns numbers to categories and subcategories in a somewhat arbitrary way.

Categories

Categories are a common organization and a reliably good one since they allow similar things to be grouped together whose attributes are usually important in some way. The specific categories, however, are crucial as they will more easily communicate more than any other organization, the designer's prejudices and understandings. As with all organizations, these control the perceptions of the information.

Randomness

While this might not seem a useful way to organize things and "add value" to them, it is sometimes the best way if a challenge of some kind is involved. Think about a game where all of the pieces are arranged already or if the sequence is already determined and carefully and logically laid out. These wouldn't be very fun to play. There may be other times where random organizations present a better experience than an orderly one.

Advanced Organizations

In case these descriptions seem too utilitarian, let me describe an example where the organization of data can provide an intense emotional reaction. If you are familiar with the Vietnam War Memorial in Washington, D.C. you may already know how quiet, yet moving this monument is. But you may not realize the importance of the monument's organization. The names of all of the US military personnel who died in the Vietnam war are inscribed on the surfaces of two long, black, granite walls. These start out short (around 12") and grow to more than 9' in the center where the two walls meet. They are constructed this way for a special reason. All of the names of these servicepeople are arranged by time (date of death), beginning with the first who died during the "police action" to the mounting death toll at the height of the war, trickling off as the US pulled out of the area. The names thus chart the pattern of the US' involvement and the personal stories of the real people involved and most affected. Imagine how different the monument would be without this organization. Suppose the names were organized by alphabet (which was actually proposed once the design was accepted). While it might be easier to find a particular person, the search (as the names themselves) would be reduced to a mechanical list, a granite White Pages.

These multiple readings allow people to both browse and search--two of the most useful and popular ways of accessing information.

Another problem was that there were many men with the same name. Which one was your friend or relative? Alphabetical organization would have completely depersonalized the monument and devastated its emotional power. So would most other organizations. Imagine categories: pilots listed here, infantry listed there. How about a continuum based on rank, or for that matter, height: the tallest men at one end, the shortest at another.

What is key to the emotional build is that those who died are found among those whom they died with. Without this organization, in fact, there is no longer meaning to the wall growing and tapering down in height. Any other organization would have created a different memorial entirely and, most likely, one without the power and emotion created in the one built. All of this is somewhat subliminal. When you visit the monument, you aren't much aware of the mechanics of its structure, but it works nonetheless. And this is true of any project, whether it is a sensitive and emotional monument, a powerful, inspiring museum, a useful and concise catalog, or a thrilling and interesting performance.

Multiple Organizations

Almost all organizations are really nested, multiple organizations. Most directories, for example, might list people's names by division or location, then by department or title, then by name. Catalogs may break products into categories first, then arrange them in a continuum based on price (highest cost to lowest perhaps). Be aware that the primary organization is just that and that large groups of things might need secondary or more sub-organizations. Each of these, of course, needs to be clear and meaningful as well.

It is also useful to include indexes that organize the same items in different ways. This is important in allowing people to find things in ways that are most appropriate for the things they know or the ways they learn. All people learn differently and have varying skills. Some may be comfortable with maps while others prefer lists. Some may not understand the alphabet while others can't understand the continuum. Multiple organizations help everybody find things easier. In addition, even if people understand the organization, they may not have the correct information. For example, they may know the street they need to go to, but not where to find it on a map (this is where street indexes come in handy). They may know that they want a recipe for a low-calorie dessert, but don't want to search through every recipe in the dessert section to find one.

Lastly, it is precisely the ability to see the same set of things in different organizations that allows people to uncover the patterns in the relationships between these things. If possible people should be able to rearrange the organizations themselves or be provided with different arrangements so they can begin to see these patterns.

Metaphors

Much has been made of the ability of metaphors to help people quickly understand things. While metaphors have been generally helpful, it is a false crutch to cling to. Metaphors (which are most usually similes anyway) are not required nor always the best approach. Too many interactive projects, for example, start with the question "what metaphor should the interface use?" Most often, the "interface" shouldn't use any metaphor--at least not as it is narrowly outlined.

Metaphors are simply one way of setting context (which helps transforms data into information). It is important that the context set is the same one intended and that it matches the desired understandings. Too often, metaphors set the wrong context and help create expectations that are not accurate and that cannot be met.

Metaphors are especially useful when they fit well into a user's or reader's experience. But to be used well, they must be abandoned when they begin to fail or when they are asked to do more than they are capable of. A good example is the desktop developed for personal computers. The strength of this idea was that it used common objects to indicate relationships by analogy (a trash can for discarding files, folders for keeping groups of files and other folders, etc.). Fortunately the designers ignored the metaphor when it broke down (for example, dialog boxes) and didn't try to take it further than was convenient.

Recently, a colleague of mine has suggested that metaphors could be another way of organizing data. She may be correct and more thought should be devoted to the question, but I generally feel that metaphors are more a means of representing things as opposed to organizing or presenting them. To me, it is more of a cognitive orientation of meaning rather than one of structure.

Goals and Messages

It is important to define the goals of the experience and the messages to be communicated as soon as possible in the development process. These drive all decisions, from Information Design, through Interaction Design, and including all aspects of Sensorial Design. Every decision, no matter how simple or mundane, should support these goals and messages. This is also a way of ensuring that inappropriate data, techniques, technology, or styles are not used. At every decision point, the choice should be the solution that best meets the goals and messages decided at the beginning of the project.

Very often the goals and messages stipulated by a client will not be correct. Clients are usually too close to their problems to see solutions clearly enough. It is important to uncover one of two layers of goals behind the ones they state and agree to if you want to be successful. Otherwise, you may find yourself never able to satisfy the client or communicate the correct messages to users.

Clarity

The most important goal of effective communication is clarity. Clarity is not the same as simplicity. Often, simple things are clear if the message is intended to be brief and small, but often the message is about a complex relationship that can only be presented with a necessarily large amount of data. This complexity can be made to appear clear by effective organization and presentation and need not be reduced to meaningless "bite-sized" chunks of data, as simplification usually does. Clarity refers to the focus on one particular message or goal at a time, rather than attempting to accomplish too much at once. Simplicity is often responsible for the "dumbing" of information rather than the illumination of it.

Interaction Design

Think about what experiences are. How do you create them? How do you know when they are successful? What are the boundaries in which you can create? What are the most satisfying experiences you can remember? Unfortunately, few people are ever taught how to create wonderful experiences for others. One of the nicest experiences you can have is to enjoy a great meal and stimulating conversation with another person. I would rather do this than watch television, read a book, or use any interactive product I have ever seen. But how do you set up and maintain such an experience? We are taught all kinds of history, science, mathematics, and language in our studies, but hardly anything about having a great conversation, though this is one of the most satisfying things you can enjoy in your life. Why?

While some people seem to have natural abilities for creating wonderful experiences for others (think of the life of the party, that great instructor, your friends, etc.), most of us must learn the hard way: through trial and error. Wouldn't it be great if we could be taught explicitly how to create meaningful interactions for each other? This is what Interaction Design addresses and, unfortunately, it is a new field with few texts, few classes, and almost no curriculum (even less than Information Design). The best sources for learning these skills (and these are critical to the success of ANY interactive project or presentation) are the performing arts. Indeed, the greatest people now participating in Interaction Design seem to have backgrounds in some type of performance, whether it is dance, theater, singing, storytelling, or improvisation.

Because of the history of interaction in performing arts, some of the only sources for guidance come from the fields of scriptwriting, storytelling, performance, and instructional design. Each of these disciplines are particularly concerned with the communication of varied stories and messages through the creation of interesting and wonderful experiences. Look to these disciplines for learning about interactivity. Remember, however, to pay attention to the limitations of the technologies and media through which your message will be transmitted.

Continuums of Interactivity

One way to consider the meaning of interactivity is to envision all experiences (and products) as inhabiting a continuum of interactivity. On one side are passive experiences like reading a typical book or watching television. While some have argued that even in these events there is an interaction between the mind and the device or the imagination and the story, these are somewhat faint and philosophical ideas. In comparison, these activities don't exhibit the kinds of choice, control, productivity, or creativity of experiences like painting, conducting a conversation, or producing a television program. The difference that defines interactivity, then can include the amount of control the user, reader, or consumer has over the tools, pacing, or content, the amount of choice this control offers, and the ability to use the tool or content to be productive or to create.

All products and experiences can, therefore by placed along this continuum. It is important to note that there is no good or bad side of this continuum. The only judgment should be if the level of interactivity (place along the continuum) is appropriate to the goals of the experience or the messages to be communicated.

Interactivity is different from production value or "richness." Typical television programs and films can have incredibly rich stories, techniques, and presentations, but offer almost no interaction (except turning the channel or leaving the theater). Compare this with the experience of improv comedy in which the audience is involved by offering suggestions or actually joining the action and the story is created as you watch.

Productivity is another spectrum that can coincide with both the richness and interactivity spectrums. Some experiences can be used more productively than others (as opposed to merely entertainment). This may pertain to learning new processes or techniques, contributing materials or content for the production of other experiences or products, or tools that allow the creation of products or experiences. Productivity is traditionally of more concern in business products than entertainment products, but being creative and producing something are typically more interesting, entertaining, and fulfilling experiences even in leisure.

The Experience Cube

These attributes create a three-dimensional Experience Cube in which can be placed all products and experiences. Note that we are still not considering the nature of the technology (whether interactive or not) involved in either creating or presenting these experiences. This is important because all experiences are equally relevant. Unfortunately, most producers of interactive media, or "multimedia" don't realize this. It must be remembered that a reader/user/consumer has access to many forms of media and, most likely, is not as enamored with the technology of any one medium as the developer might be. This means that the competition for interactive media products is as big as all of human experience. In other words, your competitors for that CD-ROM on tropical fish are not other tropical fish CD-ROMs or even laserdiscs, but television documentaries, narrative and reference books, aquariums, scuba diving, travel, etc. If the experience you create is not a compelling one (whether justified by the bounds of the technology or not), you will never find an audience.

This is probably why we have seen only a few categories of successful interactive media products: children's books and lessons, games, reference works, and pornography. Both games and reference works use interactive media appropriately and create experiences that cannot be duplicated easily in other media. While some children's books and products do this, even the ones that don't have been successful, probably because the market (parents) can justify the expense on their children's educations (both the products and the systems to run them on). Curiously, pornography uses interactive technologies particularly poorly, but it seems, there is an overlap of curiosity with sex and with technology.

Interactive Technologies

There are two categories of technologies that can be used to enrich interactive experiences and products wherever they appear within the Experience Cube. The first are Adaptive Technologies, and the second are Co-Creative Technologies (a term coined by Abbe Don). Both of these can be employed for any type of experience (performed or bottled) anywhere within the Experience Cube. Adaptive technologies are those that change the experience based on the behavior of the user/reader/consumer/actor. These can include "agents," modifying behaviors, and "pseudo-intelligence." Agents are processes that can be set to run autonomously, performing specific, unsupervised (or lightly supervised) activities and reporting back when finished. Modifying behaviors are those that change the tools and/or content involved based on the actions of techniques of the user. Some games, for example, do this, becoming more difficult as the player becomes more proficient. Other possibilities include content changing to reflect point of view, level of proficiency required, or amount of detail desired. Both of these techniques might have the effect of making a device or person in an experience appear intelligent, as might other techniques. However, this calls into question a much larger discussion of intelligence, life, and how these are defined. Suffice it to say that certain kinds of choices in changing behavior based on the actions of others (whether random, instinctive, or algorithmic) can create the appearance of a more sophisticated system or process and imply a kind of intelligence.

Co-creative technologies are those that either allow a user/creator/participant to create things themselves or offer assistance in the creation process. A technology in this category is the capability of adding content or tools to a predefined set, resulting in a "living" product, toolset, or database. Creation tools are terribly important components for creating meaningful, compelling, and useful experiences.

People are naturally creative and are almost always more interested in experiences that allow them to create instead of merely participate. While many situations can create anxiety if people are not accustomed to performing with the tools or techniques, if this anxiety can be lessened, through the careful design of the experience, people express their creativity. Co-creative products and experiences require that others participate by creating or manipulating instead of merely watching and consuming. These can be narrowly limited abilities, as in the capability of adding specific kinds of structured information to a living database, or seemingly limitless possibilities as with most "productivity applications" (think of the variety of things one can write with a word processor).

Each of these technologies can and should be employed when appropriate, but they can only be used when thought of before the experience is planned and in production. These are difficult concepts to understand, let alone deploy. They cannot be haphazardly addressed at the end of the process and still create a successful and engaging experience.

So, we come back to the question: how does one create meaningful experiences and interactions? We must first revisit our goals and messages and reevaluate the kinds of experiences our readers/users/participants are supposed to have. We must also ask them, our audience, what their needs and wants are with regard to these experiences. This is what market research is supposed to be about. It is not user testing (which needs to be done later once some possibilities have been developed), but a crucial inquiry. The process must involve brainstorming alternatives that meet these goals, messages, and audience interests and abilities in whole, or in part until possible solutions emerge. These must then be given shape with the tools of Sensorial Design and tested before they approved or labeled successful.

Sensorial Design

While all sensorial disciplines have their own traditions, all share some common attributes and concerns. These include the appropriate use of media, style, and technique, media literacy, bandwidth applicable to the technology of the situation, and an understanding of the human senses.

Media Differences

Each medium has different strengths and weaknesses. Each excels in different capabilities and different types of communication. These are intricately woven into the way we perceive through our senses. Think about our senses and how we use them. The common senses include: Sight, Hearing, Touch, Taste, and Smell. Even if we group kinesthetic abilities, balance, and sense of gravity into touch, we are still left with an ill-understood electromagnetic sense. This makes six categories of sense in all. We sorely need to develop a better understanding of our senses, how they operate, and how they relate to each other. In addition, there is the phenomenon of synesthesia, well defined in Diane Ackerman's book A Natural History of the Senses , which is the ability of some people and experiences to create sensations in one sense by stimulating another. For example, it may be possibly to represent sounds as colors (and vice versa) and apparently some people do this naturally.

This understanding of our senses is important because it defines for us the boundaries of our experiences. It is the first step in developing a taxonomy of experience, and a part of understanding why and how we respond to different media.

Style and Meaning

Using these media appropriately is not always easy. Many times, different parties involved demand the use of one component when another might be better. The same is true of Style. All style has meaning, whether implied, accidental, or deliberate. Choosing the appropriate attributes and implementing them consistently is imperative to the development of a cohesive experience. For large projects, this cohesion can easily get lost as many people implement various parts to their own standards. There are few details that do not affect the presentation, legibility, and understanding of the meaning of a message. even a detail like justified type (flush left, flush right, centered, justified) changes the legibility and perception of the paragraph. All sensorial details must coordinate not only with each other, but with the goals and messages of the project.

Like other processes of creative development, the sensorial designs require an understanding and agreement on the goals and messages of the communication. These drive all other decisions. The media and possible techniques must be explored through brainstorming, sketching, and experimentation but at some point (usually determined by a schedule), these explorations must culminate in a set of decisions about the presentation of the information and the creation of a setting for the experiences. The more integrated and careful the synthesis of these processes, the more compelling, engaging, and appropriate the experience, and the more successful the communication and interaction.

Conclusion

The field of Interface design and all forms of communication design are shaped by these three processes: Information Design, Interaction Design, and Sensorial Design. Each of these disciplines contain worlds of issues specifically relevant to aspects of communication and the development of all experiences.