Information Architecture and Visual Design Essentials in Two Short Books

Insights

Between Christmas and New Year I found the time to read through two great books. Both are short, entertaining and insightful. One introduces the practice of Information Architecture, the other illustrates basic principles of visual design. I recommend them to anyone who wants to learn more about the essentials of user experience design.

Podcasts I’ve been listening to lately

Insights

During the past few months, I’ve had a longer commute than usual. This is why I subscribed to a lot of new podcasts. Compared to my experiences from a couple of years ago, podcasting has really evolved. There are a lot of quality podcasts out there – both from traditional publishers and independent podcasters. The following podcasts are my favorites right now.

Spiekermann on Government Communication and Form Design

Insights

Some interesting thoughts from 7:16 to 9:02 on how governments communicate with their citizens and how designers could fix it.

There is still horrible government communications. If I look at the text forms. They are just as bad as they were forty years ago. And I could make them a hundred times better in two days. But they don’t realize it’s something that people can do. They go to their advertising agencies, and their advertising agencies aren’t interesting in forms. You know, they do big campaigns. And if they came to me, I would do the form, not the campaign. […]