Like many other service professions, information design is typically defined by what the practitioner makes, how they make it, and what benefit comes from it. Invariably, the “making” part of information design work is what usually gets the most attention both within and outside of the field.

With steadily increasing awareness of information design as a real thing people do for a living — mainly through the infographics/dataviz craze explosion over the past decade or so — there’s been a greater interest in the art, science, and craft behind it. A whole industry of instructional guides, tutorials, workshops, and software packages has risen to meet popular demand for what are considered key information design skills and capabilities, not to mention a growing roster of university-level courses and programs devoted to some flavor of information design.

Gaining proficiency in the “how-to’s” of information design is absolutely essential to doing the work effectively, as is gaining hands-on experience through continued practice over many years and across different contexts and challenges. But there is much more to the work than the daily design-ship-bill cycle that puts a roof over one’s head and food on the table.

What’s lost amid the tactics-heavy discussions and pursuit of technical mastery is the other half of the story: deeper reflection on and exploration of meaning in information design — the “why” and broader context of the work that counterbalances the “what” and “how.”

“Meaning,” however, is a fuzzy word. To most, meaning comes from doing “meaningful work” that is personally rewarding or of some social or environmental significance. Without belittling their importance, these pursuits of meaning — the “feel good” and “do good” — only scratch the surface of what meaning means in information design.

Meaning is not the same as a goal or purpose for information design work. It’s not something one aims for or achieves. It is a process of extraction and synthesis of many different experiences and realizations that constantly evolves over the course of one’s career. It is a perpetual cycle of doing and thinking — deep immersion in the micro-scale day-to-day work and broader contemplation of the macro-scale big picture issues:

• What is the short-term and long-term impact of what I do? How do I look beyond the final deliverable for a particular client, industry, or audience?
• What habits have become ingrained in the way I work and the types of work I do? Am I too comfortable taking a certain type of project from a certain type of client because it’s easy/profitable/steady? Am I stagnating as a professional because I’m not diversifying my “diet” of projects?
• How am I responding to large-scale shifts? What social, environmental, economic, technological, and cultural trends and cycles are influencing my clients’ and my audience’s behavior, as well as my own?

Reflection helps one see all the pieces created or collected over the course of a project or work experience, then synthesize all those fragments into a new learning or insight that can then feed back into the work. It is also a process of inquiry into the breadth and depth of information design, beyond what is familiar, established, or readily within arm’s (or cursor’s) reach:

• Why does information design work? What makes certain practices, methods, techniques, and fundamental “rules” that I use so effective? Is there a recipe or formula for understanding?
• What else is connected to information design that can enrich what I do? What other fields and bodies of knowledge, like psychology or education, can feed into my work and help me better understand what I do or don’t do?
• What else is unconnected to information design that can help broaden my view of what I do? What other experiences will give me a fresh perspective on my work and challenge my biases and assumptions? How can I get out of my comfort zone?
• Who else is behind information design? Are there other people I should know about or read up on besides the usual cast of characters (e.g., Tufte, Wurman, Snow, Minard, Playfair, Nightingale, etc.)?
• What else can we do with information design? What areas would benefit most from information design that aren’t already? What are some wild ideas that push the boundaries of research and practice?

One big challenge, I think, is that the idea of engaging in an inner dialogue about meaning-making in information design is just that — an inner dialogue only, trapped inside one’s head or notebook and not more openly shared and encouraged within the information design community. In this age of snap judgment, sharing of any sort (online or offline) is as much an invitation to vicious criticism as it is to glowing praise. A lot of insightful thinking may never see the light of day for fear of public scrutiny, or it may never be taken seriously and drown in the social media stream. Nevertheless, the benefits of promoting less conventional and more expansive thinking on the very practice of shaping meaning and facilitating understanding far outweigh the potential risks. Communities of all kinds need fresh ideas and new ways of understanding themselves, supported by a culture of openness to change, in order to grow and flourish.

Information design has come a very long way just to be recognized, accepted, and even celebrated — just a bit — in the public eye. It has taken hard work by many well-known and completely unknown people to establish a foundation of theory, research, and practice upon which many careers have been built and continue to be built. Up to now, that has been the necessary trajectory for information design, a cumulative progression of mostly “making” and research into “making.”

What got us this far, however, is not enough to get us further. To keep information design (and designers) evolving and growing, we need to move the conversation past the familiar territory of do’s and don’ts and start asking more why’s and what ifs. We need to cultivate more mindfulness and awareness in practice to complement craft: high-level conceptualization, broad exploration, deep investigation, and individual introspection. Just imagine if every information designer took time out of their daily routine to sort through the day’s struggles, successes, dilemmas, questions, and inspirations, crystallize those lessons in some form, and put that knowledge to use. What would the future of information design look like then?