Swimming in information

I will soon be writing more on ‘lean intranets’ and ‘content value analysis’ but now for something completely different…..

I’ve become intrigued at all of the designed information that surrounds us in the built environment. Information design that informs us, a lot of the time almost subliminally. So I carried out a little experiment. I walk from work every evening to the nearest underground (subway) station. I decided to note everything that I could see that might fit into this category.

Here it is –

Retail spaces – Still awaiting the IA Revolution

Next time you are in your local supermarket have a good look around. In most instances you won’t find a place that is more devoid of IA on the planet. If your supermarket isn’t an aircraft hangar with regimented shelves running up and down, stuffed with items located under arbitrary categories that are poorly signed, then please let me know where you shop.

From what I hear the supermarket owners want to keep it this way. They place the milk at the back so we have to go past other stuff they want us to buy and they have us wandering around lost and stressed out hoping we’ll pick up their special offers while we try to locate that dratted can of water chestnuts (is it canned vegetables, chinese food, asian specialties or something else?). They get away with this appalling manipulation and do-nothing attitude because supermarkets are all the same and the owners see no mileage in bucking the trend.

Yet they should beware. Until the late sixties western motorcycle companies ruled the roost and saw no reason why this shouldn’t continue forever. Yet when the Japanese put motorcycles on the market that didn’t cover you with oil and were stylish and desirable the volume western motorcycle industry collapsed within a matter of a few years. Such a paradigm shift in retail is not out of the question.

Information highway?

 

Until recently I used to work in the highways sector and street clutter was a subject that I just beginning to get interested in. People in different highways departments put signs up all over the place with little or no regard for where the signs were and what other signs might be around. In England we still have some very nice country villages but many of them were disfigured by huge signs a lot of which, in my opinion, are not really necessary.

Glad to see that the government in the UK are starting to get interested (see http://www.dft.gov.uk/pgr/roads/tpm/ltnotes/ltn108.pdf). But what has this got to do with IA ?