There is No Such Thing as Information Design by Jef Raskin

"As a curmudgeon, I am delighted to point out that the popular term, Information Design, is a misnomer. Information cannot be designed; what can be designed are the modes of transfer and the representations of information. This is inherent in the nature of information, and it is important for designers to keep the concepts of information and meaning distinct. "

and yet

"This is where we-graphic designers, computer-interface specialists, artists, musicians, sound technologists, lighting directors, cognitive psychologists, type designers, ergonomicists, and even mathematicians and physicists-come in. It is our job as designers to create effective representations of information for human consumption. "

An interesting article, but this seems more semantics than revolution to me...

I think many are missing the point.

Raskin chose the Jakob Neilsen route of scandelous outrageous statement to get attention; and is suffereing the same sort of problem Jakob also has-- the wrong kind of attention. Flash 99% bad was not as extreme as trhe title suggested, yet it won him the undying hatred of a lot of designers. Same with Raskin: he has chosen to aliente the very people who most need to hear his message. Moreover he made a bad case of it, further diluting his true message.

It's still a very intriguing article. And has sparked some good conversation on sigia

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