Making Sense of Field Research

Learn how to use field research to bring essential people-centred insights to your information design projects.

Information design is recognized as the practice of making complex data and information understandable for a particular audience, but what’s often overlooked is the importance of understanding the audience themselves during the information design process. Rather than rely on intuition or assumptions, information designers need evidence gathered from real people about how they think, feel, and behave in order to inform the design of effective solutions. To do this, they need field research.

If you’re unsure about field research and how it might fit into a project, this book is for you. This text presents practical, easy-to-follow instructions for planning, designing, and conducting a field study, as well as guidance for making sense of field data and translating findings into action. The selection of established methods and techniques, drawn from social sciences, anthropology, and participatory design, is geared specifically toward information design problems. Over 80 illustrations and five real-world case studies bring key principles and methods of field research to life.

Whether you are designing a family of icons or a large-scale signage system, an instruction manual or an interactive data visualization, this book will guide you through the necessary steps to ensure you are meeting people’s needs.

Sheila Pontis is an information designer bridging theory and practice. She is currently Honorary Research Associate at University College London, UK, a lecturer at Princeton University, USA, teaching creativity, design thinking, and information design, and partner at Sense Information Design, a New York-area design consultancy.