Designing for wisdom

This new post tries to tie what I was discussing in one of my previous posts (Data, Information, Knowledge, Wisdom) with the common practice of design. It was another article at Information is Beautiful what fired my brain.

It seems that one of their designs won a Wired design competition about re-envisioning medical data. That was what caught my attention, given that I am currently working on some e-health projects. They redesigned a cholesterol level test (you can see his whole post here).

The original design looked like that…

Whereas Information is Beautiful redesign turned it into this…

I really liked their redesign. There is some basic Information Architecture at work here. Formatting is pleasant, the numbers guide our sight through the report (although I would argue that using the same kind of bubbles for the “steps” and the actual data is a little confusing), context information about our results is also displayed (again, I am not sure about their choice of colors and bubbles, some “warning” indication might help, although it might be too stressing), and the “what now” at the end of the report is a good ending to the story.

All in all, it’s a very nice design. I disagree on some details, but given that they have dedicated a lot of time and effort to it and I just gave it a cursory review I admit that they are probably right.

But there is something more in this design than just some formatting and coloring, and this is what elevates it. This design is created to be read by somebody. Furthermore, it is created as to educate this somebody. After browsing through this report you end up knowing something about yourself and something about what this means in relation to the world, how you should act upon it.

Its purpose is not displaying data, nor it does stop at just relating this data to some other data (what was called information in the DIKW model). It keeps going up the ladder to Knowledge, and tries to integrate this knowledge and suggest action. It has been designed for wisdom.

This, designing for wisdom, I understand should be the motto of any conscious designer.

Some samples of my work in Giffgaff

I finally took some time to gather some of the work I did to help create Giffgaff, and have created a “portfolio” page based on that. They are just some wireframes and a couple of paragraphs talking about the work I did back then.

My work on Giffgaff

If you are interested in that please feel free to contact me. I will gladly answer your questions (as far as business privacy allows).

Weekly post coming!

I have to excuse myself for the inactivity. My idea is posting once or twice a week, but these late days have been exhausting.

There are a couple of ideas that come and go and I will post them here soon, hopefully I will have a new post tomorrow. Also, I am trying to add some of my work to the portfolio section this week.

So, come back in a couple of days and I will have some new stuff to share.

Data, Information, Knowledge, Wisdom

One of the precious legacies I keep from my brief stint as a philosophy student is the lack of trust in “knowledge”. That is, I tend to question what we assume that knowledge is, and look for its source. I remember the evenings I spent at the university library reading Peirce‘s “How to make our ideas clear”.

So, when I found at the appropriately named Information is Beautiful blog an interesting post comprising this beautiful graphic. I felt compelled to share it with you.

I think that this graphic represents quite well the relationship between data, information, knowledge, and wisdom, and how we construct our thought from raw data towards wisdom. I browsed the comments in the original post and found a link to the DIKW model in the Wikipedia, and learned that this model is already well-known.

It is really amazing how in this hyperlink days we can go gather data and information at the speed of light. Unfortunately it seems wisdom is still analogue.

Is this guy “trolling” the entire design industry?

Take a look at what I found at the excellent Signal vs. noise blog.

The first answer is priceless too.

Design dark patterns

Stumbled recently at a topic at IXDA forums talking about “dark patterns”, where a “dark patterns wiki” link was offered.

Curious as I am I decided to give it a look, and found it quite interesting. In a nutshell, the term makes reference to the dirty tricks that are employed to influence user behaviour towards company’s interest instead of his own. A good example would be the usual small-almost-minimal print “unsubscribe” link hidden somewhere in a big page.

Besides the “fun” factor of getting some samples of these dirty tricks I found one of the examples in the slideshare shown on the dark pattern’s wiki homepage particulary interesting (I am a form freak, so that might have resonated in me). It has to do with Ryanair and a scammy form. You can find it in the following link (will open up an audio-embedded slideshare).

Ryanair dark patterns example

UX Design Planning the way it should be done

Just noticed an old (by current standards, it’s two and a half years old) article at Boxes and Arrows about UX Design Planning that I found well documented and comprehensive.

UX Design-Planning Not One-man Show

I have been thinking recently about architecture (given its goals of aesthetics AND creating a pleasant environment that has to be “inhabited”, following complex technical rules) as a very similar scenario to web design, and the author  stating his knowledge of architecture and town planning as an introduction for his reflections on the subject touched me.

Besides, I really liked this graphic of deliverables, phases and people involved. I liked meaning “wow, that would be so cool” more than a “I will apply this tomorrow”.

If I proposed this amount of deliverables to one of my project managers I would be out of the job in a second and no UX would be applied to that project, so I have to bite the bullet and keep doing what I can with my current resources 8). Maybe someday…

Abstraction vs. Realism in UX design

Just read a very interesting (and short) article on realism in UI design, based on my beloved Understanding Comics.

The thesis is that very concrete representations of reality represent just a given object (MY house, YOUR dog…) whereas going for the abstract represent the generic concept (ANY house, ANY dog…).

Action icons, which usually represent generic actions, demand abstract solutions, but application icons would get better results from detailed and concrete icons.

Full article can be accessed with the following link:

Realism in UI design