Quotes About Information Design

#1. A metaphor for good information design is a map. Hold any diagram against a map and see how it compares.

Edward Tufte

#2. Information design addresses the organization and presentation of data: its transformation into valuable, meaningful information.

Nathan Shedroff

#3. Information design has been around since the 1970s. Pioneers like Yale University design guru Edward Tufte and design agency Pentagram have long known and used its power. But now with the rise of the Internet, it's having something of a second birth.

David McCandless

#4. Deep down, creationists realize they will never win factual arguments with science. This is why they have construed their own science-like universe, known as Intelligent Design, and eagerly jump on every tidbit of information that seems to go their way.

Frans De Waal

#5. From testimonials and personal experience we have enough information to conclude that IT'S POSSIBLE TO DESIGN AND LIVE AN EXTRAORDINARY LIFE

Jim Rohn

#6. If budget planning requires gathering information from people who may not always have the incentive to disclose that information, then the principles of mechanism design can definitely be of use in such planning.

Eric Maskin

#7. In its report, the Cox Committee concludes that China is using stolen U.S. design information to speed up its deployment of a new nuclear missile force.

Charles Bass

#8. Simplicity design axiom: The complexity of the information appliance is that of the task, not the tool. The technology is invisible.

Donald A. Norman

#9. The skyscraper is but a physical realization of the information contained in the architect's design.

Brian Greene

#10. I started in the industry in Public Relations, Quality Assurance, Information Systems and furniture moving. I tried my hand in design and haven't looked back. I'm fond of hackysack, racquetball, BBQ grilling, hanging out with my wife and friends

Dan Miller

#11. Good design is a matter of discipline. It starts by looking at the problem and collecting all the available information about it. If you understand the problem, you have the solution. It's really more about logic than imagination.

Massimo Vignelli

#12. Graphical excellence is that which gives to the viewer the greatest number of ideas in the shortest time with the least ink in the smallest space.

Edward R. Tufte

#13. If you can design the physical space, the social space, and the information space together to enhance collaborative learning, then that whole milieu turns into a learning technology.

John Seely Brown

#14. Optimal design delivers information in ways that are useful, beautiful and improve the experience of all involved: audience, client and designer.

Maggie Macnab

#15. I'm a big believer in the emotion of design, and the message that's sent before somebody begins to read, before they get the rest of the information; what is the emotional response they get to the product, to the story, to the painting - whatever it is.

David Carson

#16. An essential design feature of the associative machine is that it represents only activated ideas. Information that is not retrieved (even unconsciously) from memory might as well not exist.

Daniel Kahneman

#17. I see graphic design as the organization of information that is semantically correct, syntactically consistent and pragmatically understandable.

Massimo Vignelli

#18. In all situations where bad design decisions were made, people lacked some information that would have helped them make the right decision.

Jared Spool

#19. The artist and writer Mervyn Peake, invalided out of military service, joined the Design, Poster and Visualising Group of the Ministry of Information in 1942.

Laura Brandon

#20. As a designer, you have to think in time and see things in sequence. You have to see information as a narrative form - Paul Mijksenaar quoted by Kim Baer

Paul Mijksenaar

#21. Google has withdrawn from China, arguing that it is no longer willing to design its search engine to block information that the Chinese government does not wish its citizens to have. In liberal democracies around the world, this decision has generally been greeted with enthusiasm.

Peter Singer

#22. Traditional agriculture was labour intensive, industrial agriculture is energy intensive, and permaculture-designed systems are information and design intensive.

David Holmgren

#23. The secret of DNA's success is that it carries information like that of a computer program, but far more advanced. Since experience shows that intelligence is the only presently acting cause of information, we can infer that intelligence is the best explanation for the information in DNA.

Jonathan Wells

#24. UX designers have to constantly learn about human psychology, interaction design, information architecture and user research techniques, just to name a few, in order to create the right solutions to a user's problems.

Jenifer Tidwell

#25. Imagine an organization where the physical plant honors the mission, celebrates the employees, shares information, holds people accountable, shapes the outside world's view and helps drive performance. That would be an organization which uses visual management.

Stewart Liff

#26. Many investigators feel uneasy stating in public that the origin of life is a mystery, even though behind closed doors they admit they are baffled.

Paul Davies

#27. Clutter is not an attribute of information, clutter is a failure of design ... fix the design rather than stripping all the detail out of the map.

Edward Tufte

#28. Nature's design is fully economical. Human design follows this model when it minimizes information and maximizes understanding.

Maggie Macnab

#29. By supporting all the links in the building chain and giving them an easy, intuitive tool for sharing model-based project information, GTeam enhances workflows and improves communication from design through to fabrication and assembly.

Greg Lynn

#30. Then what exactly is it that you design?"
He gave a proud smile.
"Bitless compositions."
"Bitless? You mean, from bits, the units of information?"
"No, Mr. Tichy, the units of being bitten.

Stanislaw Lem

#31. Here's the general theory: To clarify, add detail. Imagine that. To clarify, add detail. And clutter and overload are not an attribute of information, they are failures of design. If the information is in chaos, don't start throwing out information, instead fix the design.

Edward Tufte

#32. How is the body, including the observing body, becoming a component of new machines, economies, apparatuses, whether social, libidinal, or technological? In what way is subjectivity becoming a precarious condition of interface between rationalized systems of exchange and networks of information?

Jonathan Crary

#33. Confusion and clutter are failures of design, not attributes of information. And so the point is to find design strategies that reveal detail and complexity - rather than to fault the data for an excess of complication. Or, worse, to fault viewers for a lack of understanding.

Edward Tufte

#34. Clutter is not a property of information. Clutter is a failure of design.

Edward Tufte

#35. After all, as Edward Tufte once said, "Overload, clutter, and confusion are not attributes of information, they are failures of design.

Golden Krishna

#36. Well, the whole story is in the book, but the short answer is that I was the first information architect in an organization that was traditionally design-oriented, and I felt I needed a tool to help me gain the trust and support of my colleagues.

Jesse James Garrett

#37. The multiple failures of top-down design, and the omnipresence of unintended consequences, can be attributed in large part, to the absence of relevant information.

Cass R. Sunstein

#38. Internet safety begins at home and that is why my legislation would require the Federal Trade Commission to design and publish a unique website to serve as a clearinghouse and resource for parents, teachers and children for information on the dangers of surfing the Internet.

Mike Fitzpatrick

#39. Schoolchildren are not taught how to distinguish accurate information from inaccurate information online - surely there are ways to design web-browsers to help with this task and ways to teach young people how to use the powerful online tools available to them.

Howard Rheingold

#40. Flow systems have two basic features (properties). There is the current that is flowing (for example, fluid, heat, mass, or information) and the design through which it flows.

Adrian Bejan

#41. Intelligent design is just the Logos theology of John's Gospel restated in the idiom of information theory.

William A. Dembski

#42. Practice design, Not Decoration: Don't just make pretty talking points. Instead, display information in a way that makes complex information clear.

Nancy Duarte

#43. In a biological system, the software builds its own hardware, but design is critical, and if you start with digital information, it has to be really accurate.

Craig Venter

#44. A successful solution to the client's design needs requires a collaboration of my skills, talents and knowledge with the client's information base, history in their industry and personality.

Jeff Fisher

#45. If we don't have accurate information, if we are not able to tell difficult truth one to another, we will never be able to effectively design a policy for Iraq.

Jack Reed

#46. Typography has one plain duty before it and that is to convey information in writing. No argument or consideration can absolve typography from this duty.

Emil Ruder

#47. There is no such thing as information overload, just bad design. If something is cluttered and/or confusing, fix your design.

Edward Tufte

#48. It is relatively easy to design for the perfect cases, when everything goes right, or when all the information required is available in proper format.

Donald Norman

#49. DNA is like a computer program but far, far more advanced than any software ever created.

Bill Gates

#50. What is to be sought in designs for the display of information is the clear portrayal of complexity. Not the complication of the simple; rather the task of the designer is to give visual access to the subtle and the difficult - that is, revelation of the complex.

Edward Tufte

#51. If you have no intuitive sense of design, then call yourself an "information architect" and only use Helvetica.

David Carson

#52. Many anthropologists work with a concept called embodied knowledge - tacit, nonscientific knowledge - and look for ways to incorporate such information into product design.

Katie Hafner