Document Design

1
Document Design

• By Dr. Mike Downing
• Kutztown University of PA

Adapted from Document Design A Guide for
Technical Communicators by Miles Kimball and Ann
Hawkins
2
What is a document?

• Tags on clothes?
• A drivers license?
• A web page?
• A research paper?
• The US Constitution?
• An owners manual?
• Operating instructions/

3
They are all documents

• Documents visually convey information to a
  variety of readers who possess a range of reading
  skills.
• Documents are not bound by any particular medium
  (print, electronic).
• And although, until about 15 years ago, documents
  have been static, today they can contain
  hyperlinks and will soon include embedded video
  (Adobe recently acquired Flash technology to
  enable videos in PDF files).

4
Beyond Writing Document Design

• Writing is only part of the equation when it
  comes to document design. And while the writing
  must be perfect in terms of clarity and how it
  suits the target audience, other considerations
  must be made.
• For example spacing, margins, paragraph
  indentations, titles, headings, subheads, headers
  and footers, binding methods, fonts, size of
  text, text boxes, images, and video.
• You must also consider where the document will be
  published.

5
The Communication Model
The sender encodes and then sends a message which
travels through a medium to a reader, who must
then decode the message. Ideally, feedback is
provided and the sender has the ability to
enhance or modify information and resend. The
entire transaction takes place within a
particular environment and within a particular
context.
6
Things to keep in mind

• Users are real people
• Users do not want to read documents they want to
  DO things
• Users often approach documents feeling
  frustrated, confused, and/or lost
• When users read documents, they rarely read all
  the way through instead, they pick the sections
  they need

7
Production values

• Polished vs. Rough A polished document can take
  thousands of hours to produce, particularly when
  you include revisions and elaborate art.
  Sometimes it is necessary to produce a highly
  polished document, and sometimes not.

8
Production Values (continued)

• Customization vs. Off-the-Shelf If you are
  working for a client who has highly specific
  needs in mind, you will probably have to do a lot
  of customization. However, if you are working for
  a more general audience, you can use clip art,
  boilerplate, and other off-the-shelf elements.

9
Formal vs. Informal

• When considering how formal to make the document,
  consider your audience.
• For example, a web page that features information
  related to operating a cell phoneand targeted
  primarily at young peoplewill look very
  different than a technical report aimed at a
  professional audience.

10
Document design and emotions

• People react to documents emotionally
• Without reading a word, you can make people feel
  happy or sad, intense or relaxed. You can draw
  in a certain audience or you can repel a certain
  audience.
• For example, I saw an ad for a new CD by Insane
  Clown Posse. The design, or visual tone of the
  ad was, in my view, intended to draw in existing
  fans, entice potential fans, and repel mainstream
  fans (see next slide).

11
Insane Clown Posse
12

• Questions?