Information Design [Hardcover]

Graziella Tonfoni (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0810835258 | ISBN-13: 978-0810835252 | Publication Date: September 1, 1998 0

An innovative text that approaches complex concepts with relative ease and simplicity, this new work by internationally-known Graziella Tonfoni takes the reader on an architectural excursion that is the metaphorical representation of the components of the expression of knowledge. Through the progressive building and exploration of consistently designed and complex metaphors, which the author calls 'metaphorical environments,' the reader will come to understand the building principles upon which to base the construction of multimedia forms. The first section of the book creates the setting for accurately understanding the context and deals with the implications of designing teaching material for a course in information design. Other sections build upon this groundwork using a series of descriptions of actual architectural structures. A final section of visuals is meant to facilitate active learning of those concepts previously introduced. Blank boxes on each page in this last section encourage the reader to re-number the pages to create an individual path that relates the concepts to different sections of the text.

Editorial Reviews

Review

For library scientists and other information professionals.....

About the Author

Graziella Tonfoni is Research Professor of Computational Linguistics at the University of Bologna, Italy. She is internationally known for her contributions to textual theory, cognitive science, artificial intelligence, communications, training and multimedia education. She has also been a visiting scholar at MIT, at Harvard University, and has presented her methodology in many U.S. universities and research centers.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 216 pages
• Publisher: Scarecrow Press (September 1, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0810835258
• ISBN-13: 978-0810835252
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 1.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #9,564,591 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars An utter and complete waste of time, November 7, 2000

By 

Jeffrey D. Kenyon (USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Information Design (Textbook Binding)

I can't think of a single positive thing to say about this book. The quality level is vanity press publication, rather than a work of academic scholarship; there is no evidence that an editor, or anyone speaking English as their first language for that matter, took an editing pass through this book prior to publication. For example, in the "lexicon" on p. 62:

"Vanishing: the act of causing to disappear or the state of disappearing of textual information previously vaporized (See Vaporization.)

"Vaporization: the act of vaporizing or the state of being vaporized of textual information destined to disappear after a change of communicative pressure has occurred. (See Vanishing.)"

The book consists of (1) a dense 62-page monologue, heavily citing her own work (the bibliography cites 20 authors; 31 of the 52 works cited are to her own publications), illustrated with black and white line drawings that do little if anything to illuminate the text, (2) 8 pages of photos of buildings, and (3) 102 pages of random, unconnected, and unsequenced jottings that appear to have been lecture slides.

Tonfoni takes the obvious and wraps it in obtuse intellectual jargon, producing a volume that is a waste of money to purchase, and a waste of time to read. If you want useful information on information design, read Tufte or find an out-of-print copy of Wurman's Information Architects. Or the recent O'Reilly book on Information Architecture. Or spend an hour or two on your own, thinking about specific problems, or examining information resources that you like and analyzing why.