ABSTRACT
This chapter explores limitations with the prevailing concept of document design. It offers a definition of information design-a framework meant to broaden the popular perspective on design in our field. It then describes in detail the three types of design activities involved in technical communication: physical design, cognitive design, and affective. From the user's perspective, good physical design lets them find information of interest easily. Cognitive design primarily focuses on the design process: adequately defining the user's performance goals and preparing a solution that addresses them. The last level of design is the affective, or designing the communication product for its optimum emotional impact. If information design primarily focuses on issues of appearance and text, it is neither distinct from document design nor solves the problem of limited focus of document design in most current practice and research. Therefore, information design may be better defined as 'preparing communication products so that they achieve the performance objectives established for them'.
