Information and Instructional Design

Information and instructional design are two important elements of design that serve very different purposes. Information design is about presenting data and statistics using charts, graphs or tables in an effective visual way. Instructional design is about teaching the user how to do something, similar to a procedure.

To make a distincition between the two one might understand instructional design as a recipe on how to make cupcakes, while information design could be a table about how many people like vanilla, chocolate or strawberry icing on their cupcake.

Both on these must be clear and conise in order to best communicate the message. A recipe that is too complicated or missing steps will mean the user cannot understand what they are trying to achieve. In the same way a graph that leaves out data or tries to skew or misrepresent the data will mean the user will not be able to get accurate or truthful information.

It is for this reason that these two types of design must be constructed carefully, with the designer considering what will it be like for some else trying to understand what I am trying to say.