An interesting question and response:

"As the 'Information Revolution' gathers momentum*, information designers are increasingly being cast as the 'midwives' who can deliver the 'humanized' products of a systems culture. On the one hand, we develop the instruments that coax our neighbours to part with the information needed to feed the machine. On the other hand, we dress up its output to look as if it were addressed to individuals and to suggest authorship by some concerned and caring person. And, of course, some of us also sweeten the somewhat bitter pill of automatization with thoughtful, if not cute, interfaces."

"How then does this square with the perception we have of ourselves, that we (alone of graphic designers, and in marked contrast to the 'stylists') are somehow making the world a better place? Even in my memory, designers have repeatedly been the instruments for dramatic social changes for the worse. In the sixties and seventies, it was architects and town planners who devastated our urban areas with concrete monstrosities - machines a l'habiter - that have now broken down and are uninhabitable. In the eighties, retail designers ensured that whatever romantic locations our towns and cities were twinned with - they were inevitably 'cloned with Milton Keynes'. Will it be information designers who are responsible for the millenial mess-up - delivering Baudrillard's prediction of a time when signs would be used to hide the absence of reality?"

Found while researching artcles on Information Design Ethics - a possible but dropped research topic. I'll share what I found at a later time.

Link: Information Design For A Better World?

Categorized: Design , Information Design

Tagged: , Information Design