News and events
Information needs of older people
We're delighted to welcome Michelle Kendel who will be working with Alison Black over the summer on a project researching the information needs of older people. Michelle is an undergraduate, shortly to enter her third year in the Department of Psychology. She intends to pursue a therapeutic career and has been working on a project with AACT for Children, a local charity that supports children who find it difficult to communicate.
GreenID ideas exchange
On 1st July will be giving a presentation at the GreenID ideas exchange event in Vienna on information design and sustainability. Karen, who has a background in environmental psychology, will outline some key behaviour change theories from psychology, suggesting where information designers may be able to apply the theories when designing campaigns for sustainable behaviour. People do not always react to campaigns in the way that they may be expected to, and psychology has a range of theories to explain why, and allow designers to prepare for this. Coincidentally, an interim report of research by Lancaster, Leeds and Oxford Brookes Universities on people's resistance to commuting by bicycle highlights the work information design has to do to help people overcome challenges to adopting more sustainable behaviours.
CIDR research presentations
Postgraduate research student Jeanne-Louise Moys will be presenting her research at a meeting of the Typographic Research Initiative, to be held at Loughborough University on 18 May 2011. The seminar topic is 'Learning & Teaching & Lettering & Typography', and Jeanne-Louise's talk will be Standing out: what readers notice. This follows her talk at CPH:TYPO*11 in Copenhagen in March this year where she presented on Typographic meaning: readers and typographic affect.
The new Centre for Information Design Research
The former Simplification Centre has now been renamed the Centre for Information Design Research and, while it will continue working on document simplification, it has expanded its brief to cover wider issues in information design. Its new Director, Professor Alison Black, is a specialist in user-centred design and brings expertise that ranges from the presentation of nutrition labelling on food packaging, through public information on transport systems, to questionnaires and advice campaigns on mobile phones.
The way people feel about documents
Members of the Simplification panel are currently involved in a study of how typography and layout affects the way people feel about documents - we are using magazines for the study, because so much variety can be found there, but the results will be relevant to all kinds of documents. The study is being run by Jeanne-Louise Moys as part of her doctoral research project. Preliminary finding from the study will be presented at the 2010 ATypI conference in Dublin in September.
Postgraduate ideas exchange
On the 27 September 2010 the LUCID network will be holding its first ideas exchange for postgraduate students with an interest in information design and related disciplines such as psychology; linguistics; fine art; law; literacy studies; digital development.
There will also be a 'Dragon's Den' competition for postgraduate students, sponsored by the Simplification Centre. To find out more about these events click here: LUCID postgraduate ideas exchange (PDF - 134 KB) or go to http://lucidity.ning.com
New international network in information design
The Simplification Centre is involved in an international network project that brings together academics, postgraduate students, practitioners and users in the field of information design to identify areas for future collaborative research that are relevant both to document users and producers. It will include academics from graphic and information design, applied linguistics, human factors and psychology; information design practitioners; and users from the financial and health sectors to create a forum for knowledge exchange relevant to information design in the UK and beyond.
The network, LUCID, is funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council. Colleagues from the universities of Surrey, Lancaster and Cardiff, the Royal College of Art (Helen Hamlyn Centre), Central St Martins University of the Arts, Tilburg University, the Federal University of Pernambuco, the Federal University of Parana, the University of Sao Paulo and the University of Brasilia will work with colleagues at Reading from Typography & Graphic Communication and the Simplification Centre in three main areas:
-defining and measuring graphic literacy
-everyday documents and their users
-effective information design: how do we know it works?
As well as collaborating on research, the network will provide a forum for postgraduate research students from each institution and in so doing act as a hub for postgraduates interested in information design.
Official language
The House of Commons Public Administration Select Committee published its report on Official Language on the 30 November: Bad Language: The Use and Abuse of Official Language.
The Committee concluded that bad official language is damaging because it can prevent public understanding of policies and their consequences, and can also deter people from getting access to public services and benefits. The report points to the costs to government of unclear communication, quoting the Centre's evidence that:
'error-prone forms have to be returned and corrected, and needless enquiries are made to government helplines. These costs are rarely addressed in reviews of potential savings, but we believe they are considerable.'
The Report recommends that the use of inaccurate, confusing or misleading official language which results in tangible harm should be regarded as maladministration, which would provide grounds for people to complain to the Ombudsman.
Public lecture
As part of the University of Reading's public lecture series 2009-2010, the Centre's Director, Professor Rob Waller, will be delivering a talk entitled 'Beyond plain English: why they find it so hard to talk to us'. Rob will identify some of the issues that lie behind the poor communications we receive from government agencies and business organisations. He will also talk about new research being developed by the Centre and how it's being shared with public-facing organisations.
This event will take place on Tuesday 8 December at 8pm in the Palmer building, Whiteknights campus.
Click here for more information on the public lecture series 2009 - 2010
New member: The Welsh Assembly Government
Welcome to the Welsh Assembly Government who join us from the 1 October. In the first instance we will be working with the Care and Social Services Inspectorate, responsible for funding, setting the policy reviewing, inspecting and regulating social services in Wales.
New member: National Offender Management Service
We're delighted to welcome the National Offender Management Service (NOMS), the part of the Ministry of Justice that works with offenders, whether in prison or in the community. Since many offenders are from socially excluded groups, the Simplification Centre is obviously very relevant.
In the first instance we have been working with NOMS on internal communication tools.
New researchers
Martin Thomas has been appointed to work as a post-doctoral research assistant to work with Professor Judy Delin, for six months. His PhD (from the University of Leeds) looked at translation between languages with very different writing systems and the implications of this for document design.
Karen Stanbridge joins the Centre as a post-doctoral research assistant in October. She has an MSc and PhD in environmental psychology, and she will be developing our programme of rapid research. This will involve building a participant list broadly representative of the population, who will be called upon to participate in regular experiments or consulations on information design. These will be published as a series of techincal reports, available to our member organisations in the first instance.
Jeanne-Louise Moys joins us as a PhD stundent, funded partly by the Simplification Centre studentship that we advertised earlier in the year.
CPD and training for Centre members
More than 20 students are now working towards a Certificate of Higher Education in Information Design. The programme is part-time and most people will take 2 to 3 years to complete it. Courses involve pre-reading, a one- or two-day workshop, and an assignment afterwards, with tutorial support. Workshops are run in Reading and Newcastle. Jenny Waller has been appointed as our Head of CPD and Training in the Centre. She is developing module descriptions, reading lists, and assignments, and contributing to teaching alongside other Centre staff. Jenny was formerly Head of Information Design at Coventry University, and has many years' experience in change management communications and training, including the development of a quality management NVQ qualification for government.
Recent design seminars
In May and June 2009 the Centre held a series of design seminars with document workshops in Cardiff, Reading and Leeds. Participants brought along samples of their organisation's customer communications for an instant expert review.
"A really useful, informal session. It was an opportunity to bring along problem documents and new concepts and get an expert's point of view. It was great to meet other members and prospective members and chat through common themes and current trends." Lesley Petrie, Information Design Manager, Direct and Brand Communications, Aegon UK.
To find out more about similar future events, please email: simplification@reading.ac.uk
Edinburgh design seminar
On 8 April the first of a series design seminars and document workshops took place in Edinburgh. Simplification Centre director Rob Waller spoke about the Centre's programme, and participants brought along documents for a design workshop - an appraisal of good features and problems, with expert insights about potential improvements.
Simplification Centre at the Information Design Conference
Three Simplification Centre staff members spoke at the recent international Information Design Conference in Greenwich. Rob Waller spoke about pattern languages in information design - exploring a way to integrate the working methods of interaction and information design. Sue Walker and Emma Minns spoke about the work of the Isotype Institute, a twentieth century pioneer of innovative information graphics.
New members from the financial sector
The Simplification Centre begins 2009 by welcoming two new members from the financial sector, AXA UK and AEGON UK.
AXA UK, who joins the Centre as a Foundation member, is a wholly owned subsidiary of AXA SA, operating in the UK and Ireland, and occupies leading positions in its main markets: life insurance, health insurance and general insurance.
AEGON UK is part of the worldwide AEGON Group and one of the UK's leading pensions and life insurance companies. Its units include AEGON Scottish Equitable and Guardian Financial Services and it has an estimated two million customers throughout the UK.
Research excellence is recognised
The Research Assessment Exercise (RAE) 2008 results confirm the standing of the University of Reading as a research-intensive university. The Simplification Centre is located within the Department of Typography and Graphic Communication, which the RAE ranked as the leading centre for research in graphic design and second in the UK for Art and Design as a whole.
Centre responds to Ofgem
In October 2008 Ofgem (the Office of Gas and Electricity Markets) launched a public consultation about their proposals to make the UK's energy market more competitive and to improve information for gas and electricity customers. Read the Centre's energy supply response.
HMRC staff begin courses in simplification
In December 2008 the Centre ran its first course 'Introduction to simplification'. Eleven staff from HMRC's document design team attended this two-day course at the Centre's base in the University of Reading. After excellent feedback from attendees, many more HMRC staff will be attending courses throughout Spring 2009. This introductory course forms the first module of a planned Certificate of Higher Education in Information Design. This will provide a substantial professional education for people responsible for writing and designing complex information - a key area where training provision has previously been mostly restricted to one-day commercial courses.
Our first member organisation
Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs (HMRC) are the Simplification Centre's first Foundation member organisation. HMRC was formed in April 2005 following the merger of Inland Revenue and HM Customs and Excise Departments. HMRC employs approximately 95,000 people and has around 50 million customers.
International Information Design Conference
Professor Rob Waller discussed the new Simplification Centre and the process of simplifying documents at the international information design conference Applications of Information Design held 25-28 June 2008.
The conference was hosted by Mälarden University in Sweden in co-operation with the International Institute for Information Design and attracted thirty-one speakers from fourteen countries.