Storytelling and the personalization of information

Students often initially encounter the idea of information design with the preconceived notion that information design is dry and impersonal. To counter this attitude, the author stressed to students that information design is about making information personal (and thus accessible) and instructed students to approach their information design tasks from the point of view of storytelling. Through examples of student projects – forms, maps, and instructions – the author describes how students combined their own reactions to the forms, maps and instructions (i.e., their own stories of encountering the material) with analyses of the visual and verbal characteristics of those information documents (the information’s story) as the basis for developing creating user-based designs.