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Goodbye to our 24-year-old client
It has been another rainy week here in the United Kingdom and we have more rain with this post.
Yes we said goodbye to our client of 24 years this week. A change in directors at the company has led to a change in strategy to their website design. They are now doing it in-house using an online website builder… When amateurs think they can do skilled graphic communication design or even information design work, it is usually a sign of bad and faulty things to come. We can refer to this situation as ‘bad politics’. David Sless says that of every design project, 50% is politics (Sless, 2020). We would agree, and as the saying goes ‘never underestimate the politics’. Maybe Karen Schriver (a leading information designer) would sympathise. Her redesign of a form for the application for the installation of temporary festoon/holiday lighting and/or other temporary lighting for New York city, as read in the book Information Design As Principled Action (Frascara, 2015), was rejected by the stakeholder group, and was never implemented. You might be able to get snazzy layout and graphics from an online website builder but it will not do the accessibility and usability for you. This is the work of highly skilled designers. It comes down to form and function, form being the aesthetics and look of the thing, and function being the how it works the accessibility and usability of the thing. Furthermore David Sless says:
‘So I’m all in favor of change, even changing the change. But we need to know what we are changing from. Moreover, we should not assume that everything done up till now has been wrong and that only radical transformation or revolution can solve our current “problems”. Unless we look carefully at what we are doing now before making change, we might throw out some good bits’ (Sless, 2008).
We would also suspect that the new director has not read our website thoroughly enough and has not read any of the articles we have written, What Is Accessibility and Usability? being a good example. In the coming months we hope to be able to share a new academic paper on politics, but again, it is out of our control.
So as the saying goes ‘you can please some of the people some of the time but you cannot please all the people all of the time’. March 2026.
References
- Frascara, J. (2015). Information design as principled action: Making information accessible, relevant, understandable, and usable. Common Ground Publishing.
- Sless, D. (2008). Changing the change: from what to what? Communication Research Institute blog. https://www.communication.org.au.
- Sless, D. (2020). Designing forms in large organisations. Communication Research Institute blog. https://www.communication.org.au.
User Joke Times, headlines for 26 September 2023–2 October 2023
The headline story in the media last week, of the theft of 2000 priceless items from the British Museum, made us create and design 7 kitsch campaign ideas, using copywriting, typography, branding and graphic communication, for some of the main issues going on. They show a bit of an edge on political issues, covering crime, public services, music sale revenue, social media user experience, Covid-19, regulation, morals, ethics, truth and message. Posters can be freely reused (copyright free). If you have any ideas, or would like any issues tackled, contact us, and we could return for another week.
Our 2nd edition book called The Journey of Larks (2011), also has some of our funnier-edged work. October 2023.
GOV.UK Communications Marketplace
We were accepted as a supplier on the GOV.UK Communications Marketplace after months of paperwork, where the U.K government and public sector organisations, can access a wide-range of specialist marketing and communications services. We are working more actively with them from September this year, until 2025, working on campaigns, publications, forms, text content and other graphic communication items.
It is has been a hard time for the government and everyone else in the last few years, we look forward to close collaboration with them, on projects, meetings and workshops (like user testing and feedback/review sessions). September 2023.
Editing to our website and previous publications
Over the last few years, we have been editing and sorting text content on this website and our previously published publications. We had feedback saying our writing was a bit clunky and needs more editing. We have also done a 2nd edition of our Small Print in Graphic Communication Design and Information Design: A Discussion of Issues and Interactions (2nd Edition) paper. (Note: this paper was originally published on the Usability Geek website in January 2017. In April 2023, we moved it to our Medium so we can update it more easily.)
Let us know if you spot any errors. We have also trialled and used an interesting editorial style throughout this website, and aim to make our editorial style guide publicly available sometime in the future, and add new projects. Hope you enjoy! April 2023.
Our business name
In 2015, we have updated our name from User Design to User Design, Illustration and Typesetting. Our business remains the same with no changes. February 2016.
We are a judge on the Center for Plain Language, ClearMark Awards 2013
We were asked for a 2nd year running to help judge the Center for Plain Language, ClearMark Awards 2013, in Washington, U.S.A.
The ClearMark and WonderMark awards recognise the best and worst in plain language (writing, graphic communication design and testing) each year, in the form of government, non-profit, and private companies. The 2013 ClearMark and WonderMark awards ceremony will be held on 16th April 2013, at the National Press Club in Washington, U.S.A. April 2013.
We are a judge on the Center for Plain Language, ClearMark Awards 2012
We were asked to help judge the Center for Plain Language, ClearMark Awards 2012, in Washington, U.S.A. It was enjoyable and the variety and complexity of submissions was vast, from 1-page monthly statement designs to complex multi-page forms.
The ClearMark and WonderMark awards recognise the best and worst in plain language (writing, graphic communication design and testing) each year, in the form of government, non-profit, and private companies. The 2012 ClearMark and WonderMark will be announced at the awards ceremony, on 22nd May 2012 at the Clarity 2012 Conference. April 2012.
Fellow of the Communication Research Institute
We have been accepted as a fellow of the Communication Research Institute, the world renowned, respected and pioneering information design research organisation setup in 1985 by David Sless. We have been a huge fan of his work, since discovering it. We are pleased and look forward to future collaborations. August 2011.
