Improvisational Design: Continuous, Responsive Digital Communication

Citation

Calvert, R.Z. (2003), "Improvisational Design: Continuous, Responsive Digital Communication", Online Information Review, Vol. 27 No. 5, pp. 365-366. https://doi.org/10.1108/14684520310502333

Traditional design has always expressed information in fixed forms, such as posters, film, and the printed page. With interactive media becoming increasingly important for information display, designers face new sets of problems. Ishizaki has attempted to produce a new theory for dealing with what he calls “dynamic design”.

In the first chapter he has created a new model of communication that caters for the multiple channels possible on the Web, which can be personalised to the extent that it is almost one‐to‐one rather than one‐to‐many, and his model also explains the potential for almost continuous updating of content rather than static information display. Though the model looks very like Shannon and Weaver to start with, he develops it to the point that it does, indeed, seem to explain the dynamic, personalised, and interactive nature of modern media, especially the Web.

His method of dynamic design uses a collection of agents that control design solutions in a constantly changing environment. The key is that the agents “understand” the nature of the external changes and respond to them.

His “cases” are illustrations of his idea in situations such as the use of email and maps, but it is surely on the Web that his ideas have the most potential. Information portals, already personalised to some extent, would be hugely enriched if they could adapt to changing circumstances. The snag is that, while it is obviously true his formal agents can be carefully described for a particular design problem/situation, it is not immediately obvious what meaningful actions the agents can take. Examples such as changing the type face, and the color, brightness and translucency of items on screen, can all enhance the design of information presentation and thus attract attention to key points on a screen, but it remains to be seen if these ideas radically alter existing the information design of web sites, bulletin boards, and other channels used in information management.

The book is very well presented, though illustrations are in black and white which detracts from the visual presentation in a book on that very topic, and the index is very brief.