INFORMATION AND INSTRUCTIONAL DESIGN

Instructional design is the process of using our knowledge of "How People Learn" to develop instructional strategies that meet the needs of the learners and the desired learning outcomes. Different kinds of learning goals require different approaches to instruction. The instructional designer has to determine the best instructional conditions or methods to deliver learning outcomes. The Instructional designer develops instructional strategies that are tailored to the learning objectives and the needs of the learners.

“Instructional Design is the process of analysis of learning needs and goals and the development of a delivery system to meet those needs.” (Hari Srinivas)

Hari Srinivas, Instructional Design, last accessed February 2008

Information design is concerned with transforming data into information, making the complex easier to understand and to use.Information design is about perception, how people translate what they see and hear into knowledge. It is a rapidly growing discipline that draws on the information aspects of industrial design, information content design, page design, Web site design, illustration design, typography decisions, and so forth.

The practice of information design invites questions into how people learn or prefer to learn and how they use information. It also raises questions about how to design information for different cultural and other contextual differences in the audience

"Information design is the detailed planning of specific information that is to be provided to a particular audience to meet specific objectives ... The output of an information design is sometimes expressed in written instructions, plans, sketches, drawings, or formal specifications" Michael Lawlor

Hari Srinivas, Information Design, last accessed February 2008

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INTERACTIVE DESIGN

Interaction Design is designing interactive products to support people in their everyday and working lives. It is about creating user experiences that enhance and extend the way people work, communicate and interact with each other. Examples of interactive design involves such things as mapping, mind maps, brain storming and flow diagrams.

"By interaction we mean any communication between a user and computer, be it direct or indirect. Direct interaction involves a dialog with feedback and control throughout the performance of the task. Indirect interaction may involve background or batch processing. The important thing is that the user is interacting with the computer in order to accomplish something."

Dix, A., J. Finlay, G. Abowd, R. Beale. Human-Computer Interaction, last accessed February 2008

A great example of interactive design would be the Coca Cola and Apple Web site .They use flash elements in creating a visual based system to help navigate users way around the web site. These are great examples of how interactivity has been used in design to create a exciting and involving experience.









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WEB 2.0

Web 2.0 is decribed as the new version of the World Wide Web. It refers to the changes in the ways software developers and end-users use websites and interact with it. This allows users to do more than just retrieve information; they can now build on the interactive facilities to run software-applications entirely through a browser.

“Web 2.0 is the business revoloution in the computer industry caused by the move to the internet as platform, and an attempt to understand the rules for success on that new platform.” O’Reilly

O'Reilly, last accessed February 2008

Examples of Web 2.0 would be:

· Hyper linking; Is changeable sites such as blogs or personal websites.
· Tagging; The ability to post whatever the selected item is a category, which is then used for searches performed on the website or browsing, linking together the posts that have been tagged the same.
· Wikipedia; This site allows many web users to view information on almost any subject matter while also being able to edit any incorrect information as well as create their own. This can make Wikipedia an unreliable source of information.
· Social Web sites; An online community that focused on building online social networks for users who share similar interests and activities, or would like to explore the interests and activities of others. An example would be Deviant Art.
· Blogs; Websites that are like diaries or journals, as a way of providing commentary or news on a particular subject.






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