You Can't Miss: Designing with Data

This week, Eye Magazine's blog covered a conference on designing with data. The annual "Design of Understanding" conference in London hosts a bunch of speakers who talk about the newest trends and developments in presenting information. According to the article, the U.K. has been on the forefront of humanist design, especially their government and all of its official documents, sites, and signs. One quote from the article really sums up the approach of the government designers:

"The mantras are ‘remember, we are designing information for people, not pushing pixels around the screen’ and ‘putting in the work to make it simple’."

When people hear "keep it simple," I think most assume that there will be little work involved. As if the more work you put in, the busier and less natural it will look. I think that's a nice summation of the designer's role: putting in the work to make it simple, almost translating information into an easy-to-digest format. I can think of some examples of complex ideas made easier to comprehend by putting them into simple formats. Here are some cool examples.