Abstract:

Within Information Design (ID) education, project outcomes are often assessed on formal quality and the coherence of the design process. However, students' intentions often remains implicit and difficult to evaluate. This study introduces a methodology based on Knowledge Objectives (KO) as a pedagogical tool to: make design intentions explicit, assess how projects contribute to knowledge acquisition, and support a structured evaluation of students’ outcomes. Drawing on learning goals in education, we define KO as statements specifying the knowledge ID artefacts aims to activate in the audience through visual features, which we call Knowledge Activators (KA).

The methodology unfolds across five phases and remains flexible and adaptable to different contexts. Rather than imposing predefined knowledge categories, students are guided to articulate what knowledge is at stake and how design can make it understandable. Within this approach, KO operate at multiple levels:
- Strategic intent. KO orient the data design process, defining conceptual boundaries and guiding decisions during data collection, analysis and organisation.
- Operational decisions. KO inform representational and design choices during artefact development, supporting self-assessment.
- Evaluation orientation. KO help define how both students’ outcomes and artefacts are evaluated, making it possible to assess whether artefacts function as KA for their audience.
- Reference parameters. KO serve as evaluation benchmarks to verify whether intended knowledge outcomes were achieved.

We present three classroom implementations of the methodology for Communication Design students at Politecnico di Milano, each adopting a different format:
1. Data visualization sandbox.
Master’s students developed an individual data visualization project using a dataset of their choice, and formulated a KO specifying the knowledge the visualization aimed to convey. The exercise had a formative purpose–introducing students to both data visualization and KO formulation–and KO were used by the faculty to evaluate the projects.
2. From Data to Exhibition. Master’s students produced ID artefacts for a Media and Information Literacy exhibition on problematic online trends. iN this case the KO guided artefacts design, supported faculty evaluation, and informed evaluation activities with exhibition visitors to verify whether the intended KO were achieved.
3. Digital Design. Bachelor’s students designed interactive data visualisation websites for non-expert audiences. No public evaluation was conducted. Each group formulated three to five KO per project, guiding visualisation design and informing faculty feedback.

Together, the three cases show how KO can function as a shared vocabulary for critical, traceable and evaluable design: they enabled students to connect design choices to declared KO and translate feedback (from visitors in the second case and from faculty in the first and third) into concrete redesign actions.

The methodology is transferable to teaching activities in communication design and related fields. Through the analysis of the three cases, we discuss its potential to make explicit the epistemic purpose of ID projects and support design decisions with more robust arguments, as well as its limitations and conditions of use. We also reflect on how to keep KO operational within the design process without reducing them to checklists.

Keywords:

Design Education, Communication Design, Information Design, Knowledge Objectives, Evaluation-driven Methodology.