Before creating instructional/ information design it is first important to understand your users and their needs, these needs must be met in order to create an effective instructional/ information design. The target users of a design will greatly affect how the design will be constructed, for example an instructional design intended for children will be vastly different to a design intended for business men and women.
When creating an instructional or information design it is important that you first understand your user and how they will respond to the interactive, this can be aided through the use of user personas, scenarios and artifact personas – discussed further in lecture notes ‘Interactive Design Process’ – it is also vital to make information easy for the viewer to understand and access, a key method to achieving this is to represent the information in a visual manner, such as a graph, map, flowchart or instructional images, this is because all of the necessary information is clearly represented and categorized so the viewer can look at the information and quickly understand what it is trying to covey.
The ultimate goal of instructional design is to teach the user how to do a set task, by understanding how people learn and think a designer is able to develop a strategy that will help their design meet the needs of the user, be easy to interact with and easy to learn from. It is vital for designers to keep instructional design reasonably simple with easy to follow steps. Instructional images that illustrate the point the designer is trying to convey help make the instructions clear and easily understandable for the viewer.
References
Culatta, Richard. “Instructional Design.” Instructional Design. Web. 21 Mar. 2011. http://www.instructionaldesign.org/
Culley, Annette. “What Is Instructional Design?” Instructional Design Australia. 5 Mar. 2007. Web. 21 Mar. 2011. http://instructionaldesign.com.au/
“Documen Information Design.” Documen. Web. 21 Mar. 2011. http://www.documen.com/
interactivedesigning 