User Experience Design for Technical Communication: Expanding Our Notions of Quality Information Design

Information design has traditionally favored instrumentalist and rationalist models of communication over more rich, experienced-based models, defining a 'good' text as one that enables users meet their goals with expedience. This paper critiques the expedient view of information design by offering a brief history of information design, and then presenting an alternative perspective derived from experience design literature to show what might characterize an expanded notion of information design. This new model argues for addressing people's emotional, psychological, physical, and social needs, as well as their cognitive ones and thereby redefining a 'good' text as one that embraces the complexity of humanity. This expanded notion of information design embodies Jurgen Habermas' concept of communicative rationality which counters the ethic of expedience inherent in most information design literature and practice.