Introduction

After four symposiums in Voralberg (in co-operation with Fachhochschul Vorarlberg) and one in Pittsburgh (in cooperation with Carnegie-Mellon University), Vision Plus 6 took place in Vienna in July 1999. In October 1999 Vision Plus 7 'Design for communities/diversification of minds – conversation in process' had been staged at Tama Art University in Tokyo. Vision Plus 8' Turning information into corporate knowledge/innovative information management: a design challenge' got fixed for July 2000, again in Vienna under the patronage of UNESCO (in cooperation with 'Fachhochschul-Studiengaenge der Wiener Wirtschaft' and 'Werbe Akademie WIFI Wien'). The topic of Vision Plus 6, 'Drawing the process: visual planning and explaining' focused on the visualisation of processes and how visual means can transform complex data into comprehensible information. Three subthemes had been chosen: - Drawings with a purpose: seeing and understanding ; - Process visualisation and visual planning; - Information + Creation -> Sensation

The Vision Plus symposiums are organised by IIID, the International Institute for Information Design. IIID is indebted to the editors of the Information Design Journal for their close co-operation in having decided to publish a selected number of papers and summaries. These papers and summaries in IDJ 10 (1) that are based on presentations at the Vision Plus 6 conference nicely complement the 'Proceedings, Abstracts, Bibliography' of Vision Plus 6, which can be obtained from the IIID web site.

It is the long term aim of Vision Plus symposia to prepare the grounds for a semi-virtual Information Design University. Representatives of more than twenty renowned universities and research institutes from around the world have already declared themselves ready to contribute actively to its development.

IDJ readers interested in IIID activities in general and Vision Plus symposia in particular are invited to write to www.info@iiid.net or to visit www.iiid.net for further information.