The course is an Introduction to theoretical foundations and practical applications of Information
Design (ID) for Computer Scientists coming from diverse areas. The course is held by three people (Lisa Ehrenstrasser, Anna Oberauer, Thomas Pani) from different disciplines. The aims are as follows:

• Exploring the complexity of information -- especially topics of computer science -- together with its planning, composition, representation and design.
• Understanding ID within the historical context and the present development forming a multidisciplinary profession including all design challenges.
• Gaining detailed knowledge about application areas, adequate methods and applied techniques for implementation (e.g.: evaluation of information with readability tests, targeting, diagrammatic reasoning etc.).

The course wants to meet the challenge of ID as interdisciplinary field of computer science on three levels. These three levels contain a range of theoretical, methodical and applied aspects of ID.
The course consists of lectures from the teaching team and elaborations from students on the history of ID, foundations of visual communication cognition and perception for information design; audience targeting; diagrammatic reasoning; visual representation of software artifacts, transformation of text into graphics and visual representations, applications in manuals, slides and textbook design and evaluation techniques of ID.

The course will be held in English, the course dates are blocked.

The course consists of...

• Lectures of the teaching team to main ID topics (e.g.: multidisciplinarity and complexity ofID, evaluation of ID within specific applied, historic content and importance of ID ...)
• Applied exercises for students carried out in small teams, e.g.: planning an implementation of readability tests in defined application areas, design and development of context and user related information with Personas, exploring and elaborating on existing theories from mathematical or computer science areas.
• Literature review and presentation by students.
• Developing and implementing ID practice in student projects in small teams.
• Having an open debate and discourse together with mutual evaluation during the whole course.

The course dates are blocked. Between course dates, students work on assignments.

COURSE DATES: Tuesdays 10:00-12:00

07.3. Kickoff
14.3. Lecture 1
21.3. Lecture 2
28.3. Lecture 3
04.4. Lecture 4
25.5. Lecture 5
02.5. Lecture 6
09.5. Lecture 7
16.5. (reserved)
23.5. Lecture 8
30.5. Lecture 9 + final presentation 

Lectures and exercises consist of...

• Lectures and applied exercises for students (carried out alone or in teams)
• Literature review and poster design on defined topics

ECTS Breakdown:
---------------------------------
kick off meeting    1.5 hours
6 lectures         18   hours
reflection          1.5 hours
exercises          92   hours
---------------------------------
Total             113   hours

The course grade generates equally from the following parts: planning, design and presentation of the exercises and ID projects (in teams) and presentation of a literature topic (alone). Precondition for a positive grade is to be present and participate on all course dates. The grade is given by the teaching team.

The course is open for all students coming from different curricula, and can be registered as "Freichfach" as well.