3.7Information Design (Universal Design, Accessibility, and Interface Design)

No matter how capable a system is, it means little if the people using it find it confusing. Information design is a collection of ideas and concrete techniques for making things "easy to use for everyone." Designing screens and how information is conveyed with a diverse range of users in mind—elderly people, people with disabilities, first-time users—matters equally for corporate systems and public websites.

3.7.1Universal design and UX/UI

• Universal design is the approach of designing products and environments to be usable by as many people as possible, regardless of age, disability, or nationality. Unlike barrier-free design, which adds special accommodations for specific people, it aims to be usable by everyone from the start.
• UX (user experience) is the overall experience a user gains while using a product or service—ease of use, satisfaction, impressions, and so on. UI (user interface) is the actual point of interaction—screens, buttons—that the user touches. UI is one component that makes up UX; even with a good UI, overall UX (including support quality or delivery experience) can still leave satisfaction low.

3.7.2Web accessibility, screen structuring, and interface design

• Web accessibility means designing so that everyone can access a website's information and functions, including people with visual, hearing, or motor impairments—for example, alt text for images, sufficient color contrast, and full keyboard operability.
• Structuring means organizing screen layout and navigation flow—sign-in screens, navigation menus—so that users can reach what they need without getting lost. Placing frequently used features in easy-to-find locations and showing the user's current location (e.g., breadcrumbs) are examples of structuring.
• A pictogram conveys information or guidance through a symbol rather than text (e.g., emergency exit signs, restroom signs), letting people understand intuitively across language differences. Color universal design (CUD) accounts for diversity in color perception, designing so that information can be distinguished using shape and text in addition to color, not color alone.

Consider a project improving the login screen of an internal company portal. The team first discovers that "users who forget their password cannot quickly reset it," and realizes this is not just a UI problem (a confusingly placed button) but a whole UX problem—the minutes-long wait for the reset email, slow support response, and the experience as a whole. Next, elderly users report "the text is too small to read," so the team revisits font size and color contrast ratio, and adds alt text for screen readers from a web accessibility standpoint. It also accounts for users with different color vision by adopting color universal design, showing error messages not only in red but also with an "x" icon and text. For screen layout, the team performs structuring to organize the flow between sign-in, password reset, and help, adding breadcrumbs and a current-location indicator so users do not get lost. Finally, for language-independent situations like emergency evacuation guidance, it uses pictograms so that users who cannot read Japanese can still understand. In this way, the elements of information design achieve "easy for everyone to use" only when combined, not in isolation.

3.7.3Section summary

• Universal design = designed from the start to be usable by everyone (distinct from barrier-free design)
• UX is the overall experience; UI is one component of it. Web accessibility includes alt text, keyboard operability, and more
• Structuring creates flow users do not get lost in; pictograms communicate independent of language; color universal design combines color with shape/text