The Design of Understanding

Design of Understanding 2014!

2014 Conference now done - stay posted for details of what next...

Do see what we are up to at our main site - 

After the Flood

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What is it?

A one day conference looking at how ideas are designed to be more understandable.

We look within and beyond the discipline of Information Design to related fields too - this year with speakers from government, product designcomics, toy makers and magazines.

It is hosted by the St Bride's Library and curated by Max Gadney, founder of After the Flood, an information design consultancy.

When?

Friday 24th January, 2014,  930am (10am start) -530pm with drinks afterwards

 Where?

St Brides Library(Fleet St , London, UK)

See Map

 Also...

I believe that decent conferences follow these rules:

- Insightful speakers who talk about what works and doesn't work and why

- no 'portfolio sessions' - speakers won't bore you with just showing pictures

- brief talks (roughly 20 mins) and everyone kept to time

- Lanyrd Page likely to follow

Info on previous conferences

A review of DOU2012 at Notura - nice and detailed

Notura review of DOU2013

Aden Davies wrote a good review of DOU 2013

Mark Barratt keeps us honest with his DOU2103 review for Eye

The DOU 2012 Lanyrd page is great for info 

Eva has done some nice sketch-notes 

and Timo's photos are here too

 

DOU 2012 is happening! - Jan 27,2012

As the headline says, we are doing another Design of Understanding event next year.

It'll be on the 27th January, 2012.

I'm going to spend the next few months getting the programme together.

Like last time, all proceeds will go to the St Brides Library who will be hosting the event.

I got some great feedback from you all - but keep it coming - I want to grow what we did well and learn what we can can do differently.

maxgadney@googlemail.com

#dou2012

 

Notes from 2011 DOU Event

Here are two quick notes - more will follow through the next few weeks.

Eva Lotta Kamm sent these fantastic notes - Thanks Eva.

Dr Paul Rennie shares the text of his talk here. 

Ben Weiner wrote a review here

Lots of Twitter comments/colour here

added on 5/2/2011:

Good write up here from Lee Sankey at Voxygen

I'm busy/traveling in the US this week so maybe more notes in a weeks time. 

Im back now - My notes to follow soon.

Lulu Pinney reviewed it here - worth looking elsewhere on her blog - some good stuff. 

Next...

Some things - 

Thanks to everyone who came and thanks to St. Brides for having us.

Thanks to the speakers and journal contributors.

If you have feedback, please mail me - 

maxgadney@googlemail.com

I'm work-travelling for a week so won't have time to post my notes but if you took any or took good photos please mail and ill link to them. I should have these up in a couple of weeks.

It is possible we do this next year so tell your friends and colleagues about it.

Design of Understanding request to attendees

I haven't orgainsed videoing it or anything - too much hassle all round.

Bu't if you take any good notes or photos then please sned them to me at

maxgadney@googlemail.com

and i'll link to them from a summary post.

#dou11 will be the hashtag

Cheers.

Fiona Romeo is speaking! (I got round to posting the bio!)

(Fiona's been on the bill since the start but a my recent wedding and starting a  new job distracted me from putting up the Bio - soz Fiona and folks)

Fiona Romeo

Fiona Romeo is Head of Digital Media at the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich. Prior to that she worked at BBC, Disney and The Science Museum among others.

 

Why I asked Fiona to speak

Fiona is a technologist, writer, designer and thinker and at the moment she focuses all this on getting people to understand and engage with the subject matter of her exhibits. Her views on how to inform fickle audiences as well as curators and experts are worth hearing.

Critical Appraisal at The Design of Understanding

There was a decent discussion about whether we should have Q&A at The Design of Understanding.

Often, Q&A sessions at conferences are hijacked by those pushing to sell goods, services, CV's.

I don't care. I want questions here and if no on else asks them then I will. I love asking questions.

One of the values of this conference is that of critical appraisal - of discussing what works and what doesn't. How we improve our discipline. 

So bring questions, ideas, things to say. There are 5 mins after every session.

If we need to run a debate into lunchtime we can too - we have a nice large room. And there is beer afterwards which always goes well with discussion.

I'm very up for it.

3 weeks to go...

DOU Tickets all sold out

We sold out the tickets for the Design of Understanding in December.

Thanks to all who have bought a ticket. 100% of the proceeds goes to St Brides and their fine work.

If you didn't manage to get one, please mail me and i'll forward your details to the waiting list.

maxgadney@googlemail.com

Please don't be shy about doing that as it will also show appetite for what we may do next year.

 

Any questions for News Panel?

We'll be having an expert panel of News designers at The Design of Understanding.

They are Jon Hill, Times Newspapers, Michael Agar, Telegraph Group, Scott Byrne-Fraser, BBC - all chaired by Michael Robinson from the Guardian.

Soon, we'll be discussing the issues that will illuminate the panel discussion.

I'd like any input from any interested parties. (If you like I can credit you and your endeavour when asking any questions - or they can be anonymous - up to you.)

(there are  a ton of potential topics in this area - datavis for mass audiences, ROI of visual journalism, target audiences, new methods etc)

If you have anything you would like to ask them, then mail me  on

maxgadney@googlemail.com

or you could leave a comment below. 

Failing that I imagine we will come up with some good stuff over some steak and chips.

 

Schedule

Here is the schedule for the day.  Shorter talks means a better conference in my view. This may move about a bit - and we won't have titles for the talks for a while.

(If you just want a list of the Speakers the click here)

 
0845-930 registration, coffee

930-945 Start, Intros

945-1015 David McCandless

1015- 1045 Michael Blastland

1045-1115 Fiona Romeo

1115-1145 break, coffee

1145-1245 News panel - Jon Hill, Times Newspapers, Michael Agar, Telegraph Group, Scott Byrne-Fraser, BBC - all chaired by Michael Robinson from the Guardian.

1245 - 1415 Lunch, exhibits

1415- 1445 Chris Heathcote

1445 - 1515 Paul Rennie

1515 - 1545 Simon Rogers

1545 - 1615 break, coffee

1615- 1645 Rob Waller

1645- 1715 Jack Schulze

1715- 1720 wrap up, thankyous

1720 -  drinks