Critique of a Public Space

 Analyzing public spaces for my final blog assignment, the best place I found is Target store.  Everything in the store is based on strategic market analysis of what the customer wants. As you walk though one of their stores you can see the tools of information design used everywhere.

 Signage system at Target store is very clear and easy to understand.  It’s well defined signage system helps customers find what they need. Aisles and registers are clearly marked with large numbers.

                                                  

Target has used their own branding color for large overhead signs for each Department in the store.

                                                

 Customers don’t have to ask sales personnel about any discounts. When something is on sale at Target, customers can notice it easy by huge signs hanging throughout the store.  In short signage and wayfinding system inside Target store is professional looking and creative.

 Target interior is also designed beautifully. Stylish Images color scheme around the store grab customer’s attention, get them excited and make them want to try on their products.

 To make the shopping experience wonderful Target has created a user friendly environment. With the use of better lighting, wider aisles, clean stores, carefully planned shelving arrangements, the grouping of certain products and providing customer service representatives more visible, they are offering their customers more fun with their shopping experience. 

I didn’t find any areas for improvement at this wonderful store. Target has perfectly applied Wayfinding and User-Centered design theories.  

Translation Tool

As the blogging is growing bigger and bigger every day, it has become almost a necessity to make sure that your blog can be read by readers from all corners of the world. In order to reach the broadest audience possible it is important to offer blog content in the Language of the readers and make it available in many different languages other than English. There are many different language translation services being offered today but Google Translate gadget is a very simple gadget that translates your blog page into many different languages. 

Readers need translation tools at their fingertips so, adding a translation tool to your blog is always useful. For this assignment I have added Google Translate Gadget to the left side of my blog. Google Translate Gadget has just a simple title and a dropdown list of languages you can choose from. It quickly and easily converts blog content into selected language. If my blog content would only be available in English language, then it would be limited to the readers who understand English. Readers from all around the world would not be comfortable with the language of my blog. Adding this Gadget to my blog will help bring people from all around the world to read my blog content into their native languages. This is a good way to make my blog multilingual and get read by a wide international audience.

Tools of Information design

Blogs gain popularity by the amount of contents posted as well as how many viewers can reach the blog. There are many strategies blogger's can use to promote their blogs. One of them is using social networking sites (Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Google + and many more).

Social media has changed the world. It is getting important for Bloggers and internet marketers. Businesses get boosted with social networking websites and for Bloggers, their blog get higher ranking in search engines. There was a time when traffic to a site was only dependent on search engine and via buying traffic. Now, time has completely changed and Internet marketers and Bloggers are using Social media marketing strategies to get the attention of targeted audience from social media sites.

Social networking sites can be very effective when it comes to promoting one’s business or blog. It has since become a very effective marketing tool that anyone can benefit from taking advantage of it. There are many ways to use social media to promote your blog, product or business. Facebook, Twitter and Google+, YouTube,  are the good ways to drive traffic to blog because it allows you to connect with your target audience and share links of your blog contents. Remember, building connections is a key part of growing your blog, and Social networking sites are an excellent tool for building connections.

For this assignment I included Social networking websites to my blog gadgets that would help me in promoting my blog. At the end of every blog post there are Facebook and Twitter share buttons for readers to share the blog post. Readers can also email blog post to others.
I also added Facebook badge to my blog layout showing up on the right side. This will allow readers to friend with me on Facebook .  I have also added vertical sidebar that contain Facebook “like”  button so that readers can like my posts. I also use Twitter and Google + button that can also help reader share my blog. There is also a counter box that show the number of Facebook likes, Tweets and number of people recommend my blog though Google +. I also added “join this site” button so that readers can join my blog become a member and also they can invite their friends to read my blog.

Process of Information Design

Effective communication is the very essence of information design. (Baer, 13) The process of information design contains few steps that can make the design effective.

STEP #1:

The first step of the Information Design process is to determine who the targeted audience is. A good way to do this is by asking some of the basic questions: What do you want to achieve? Who will use it? Where will they use it? When will they use it? Why will they use it? And how will they use it? Finding the answers to these questions you will be able to adequately develop a strategy for the rest of the process. 

 

STEP #2:

The second step is to create and present a creative brief. Kim Baer defines it as a “short document that typically runs anywhere from two to ten pages, depending on the scope of the project.  This document outlines the pertinent information about the project so that the entire team has a clear sense of the project’s background and goals” (Baer, 50) It gets the entire team up to speed on the project background and goals. The brief usually contains four parts. “The creative brief acts as a single point of communication to ensure that everyone is on the same page as the project moves forward.” – (Baer, 52)

STEP #3: 

The third step in the process of Information Design is to determine persona and scenarios. All of your data now comes into play as described by Kim Baer, “A persona is a brief profile of a typical user that outline attributes, desires, needs, habits, and capabilities of a typical user” (Baer,58). It is an important step that helps the team understands the target audiences better and also helps the designers better understand how the audience reacts to the design.

STEP #4: 

The final step of the Information Design process is coming up with a prototype. A prototype is a model that gives you an idea about how the final product of your information design process will look like. Once a prototype is created then begins testing of design. Different types of testing techniques are used such as concept tests, participatory design, focus groups, usability testing, and beta testing.

Reference:

Baer, Kim. Information Design Workbook. Beverly: Rockport Publishers, Inc., 2009. Print.
Cross, Neal. Information Design Course, Empire State College. 2012.