History
The Information Design Association is a group of Information Designers and other professionals in the UK with an interest in Information Design – a diverse field of practice that includes the planning and production of such artefacts as product and software manuals, wayfinding systems, business forms and utility statements, learning materials design, website design, patient information leaflets... basically, any situation in which relatively complex and critical information has to be communicated, and where clear writing and design can help.
The Information Design community internationally gives emphasis to the careful scoping of projects, conducting research to understand people (‘users’) and their needs, and testing designs rigorously to ensure that information products do what they are supposed to do.
The IDA was founded as an organisation in 1991, but had been preceded by a number of international Information Design Conferences in the UK, which were organised to help provide material for Information Design Journal, launched in 1979. Throughout the nineties, the IDA held regular evening meetings in London and added to the international conference series with further events in Cambridge, Reading and Coventry.
(Rob Waller wrote in 1994 a more detailed account of the origins of the IDA: read here.)
However, momentum (and the energies of volunteer organisers) ran out around the start of the Millenium, and the IDA was inactive for several years. Then, a group of IDA stalwarts came together and organised a very successful Information Design Conference in Greenwich, London in March 2007.
The success of this has encouraged us to re-form the IDA and to plan a renewed series of evening meetings, which have been well received. We hope you will join us at these events.