robert hempsall - information designer » Entries

The difference between answering questions and getting answers

Robert — Wed, 21 Jul 2010 21:16:58 +0000

Two recent news items made me think about the differences in the way we react when we are asked questions, and when we want questions answered. These are my thoughts.

Me, in a magazine, talking about porn – infoporn that is!

Robert — Fri, 16 Jul 2010 19:52:18 +0000

Design Week just featured a comment I made about 'infographics'. If I had known they were going to, I would have said more - and here's what I would have said.

Detail that makes the difference

Robert — Fri, 11 Jun 2010 18:27:33 +0000

A few days ago, I came across this TED talk given by Rory Sutherland of Ogilvy about the importance of detail. Although only the last 20 seconds bear any direct relation to the kind of work I do, but it's a fascinating and entertaining talk in terms of a plea to organisations to stop looking for 'big-picture' solutions to problems which can just as easily be fixed by sorting out the detail instead.

A heavenly piece of information design

Robert — Mon, 19 Apr 2010 20:41:42 +0000

Today I had an email request from an ex-colleague who was looking for, in her words, 'an info design archetype'. What she was looking for was an example where, purely through design, a document had been made to look simpler.

There was something that had long since slipped to the back of memory, largely because it's not something I see on an everyday basis. And this is what it was: it's the service from when my daughter was christened, and it's a fabulous example of what can be achieved with some simple typography.

The Plain Language Act

Robert — Mon, 12 Apr 2010 20:39:06 +0000

There has been a lot of talk in the plain language field about the forthcoming vote on the Plain Language Bill in the US. Its premise is very simple: to require the federal government to write all new publications, forms, and publicly distributed documents in a “clear, concise, well-organized” manner that follows the best practices [...]

The Crystalmeth Mark

Robert — Thu, 01 Apr 2010 08:42:08 +0000

This was my Eureka moment in the bath - not exactly Archimedes I grant you. I think it's time for a new standard in plain english. I give you the 'The Crystalmeth Mark - can people understand your information while under the influence?'

Alright, so you've taken a look at the date and realised I'm not entirely serious, but I do have a valid point to make.

A simple test of information’s effectiveness

Robert — Sun, 14 Mar 2010 11:19:50 +0000

This post is an expansion on a recent tweet in which I suggested that:

"A simple test of information's effectiveness: How far into it do the majority of people have to go to find out what they need to know?"

When less is just more work

Robert — Fri, 19 Feb 2010 12:13:25 +0000

The saying goes (and it's especially relevant to what I do) that 'less is more', and in most cases this is true. After all, a lot of what I get paid to do is delete what's not necessary to get it down to a manageable amount of information.

Too often though, the less is more mantra is taken too literally and ends up making things more difficult than they need to be...

Guest blog for the Greater Manchester Chamber of Commerce

Robert — Fri, 12 Feb 2010 13:39:19 +0000

As businesses, we’re constantly taking time to understand our customers but how often do we take time to check our customers understand us. I’m not talking about our brand values or anything deep and meaningful like that. I’m talking about the everyday pieces of information we use to tell customers about everyday matters: instructions to [...]

The shortest route isn’t necessarily the simplest one

Robert — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 09:45:25 +0000

When providing people with directions, whether written or on a map, the temptation is to give them a route that’s used by people who make the same journey regularly. When we make a journey regularly though, we often don’t take the simplest route, that being defined as the one that involves the least number of decisions about [...]