The Information Design of Games
From CS377g “Serious Games” and CS247i’s unit “Games for Understanding”
An annotated deck
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There are multiple disciplines that specialize in turning data into information and making possible for ordinary people to understand.
- Information Architecture is the art of making information findable, understandable and usable.
- Graphic design is the art of making print and digital work beautiful and desirable.
- INFORMATION DESIGN is the art of making information understandable. Like maps, it’s usually a lie, but a useful lie.
Examples
![](https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/1125/1*roiyL5amQaIx6301I4rzGA.jpeg)
Remembering rules (and procedures, and point values, etc) is HARD! SO you want to make sure the information people needs is where they need it.
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With Patchwork, there are three boards: two for players to make their quilts on and one to keep score.
Patchwork has been designed for maximum free working memory.
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By notations, I mean anything that a user needs to write or draw.
![](https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/1125/1*Q6r3XAKmQgZ01w5eZ9tAiQ.jpeg)
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Kodama takes tiles and relaxes the edge matching element, letting you grow a tree
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Oh hai educators. Here are slides. pdf | ppt
Be nice! Attribute twice! (me and Matt)
BONUS
Strongly recommended: Randy Hoyt on Cardboard Interfaces