What is a good document?

According to Schriver (1997),“Document design is the field concerned with creating texts, that is books, pamphlets, posters and others that integrate words and pictures in ways that help people to achieve their specific goals for using texts at home, school, or work.” It is the bringing together of design features like prose, graphics, illustrations and typography for purposes of instruction, information or persuasion. Dabner and Herriott (2006) states a document is considered good when it successfully presents the information and content with designs that are invisible so that the design can guide the readers like an invisible hand and not distract them as well as attract their attention to the document.


In order to present a better understanding between the importance of good design to the reader's, I have done a comparison between my group presentation slides for the subject Issues in Publication and Design and what flaws it had and how I applied the theories of how to create a good document learned from various readings in my individual presentation.


One of the the mistake done in my group presentation was the inconsistency of color shade that was used as shown in the slides above. According to Singer (2002), color can be used for highlighting important points or issues however it must be used in moderation or as Neilsen (2008) states it will end up confusing the readers. I improved this mistake in my individual presentation whereby I limited my presentation slides to only have maximum 3 colors which are white, black and purple.




One more mistake done in the group presentation is the wrong usage of proportion which refers to the size and placement of text and graphics on a page. Reep (2006) states that equal amount of space given for text and visuals is rarely used as this will interfere with the reader's ability to use the document because the information will look cramped. In my group presentation, it is visible that the same design is used page after page.




Therefore, I changed the layout in my individual presentation so that it does not look monotonous. (Reep, 2006)



In conclusion, this minor changes in my individual presentation will actually help my audience to get a better understanding and idea on what I am presenting.



References

First Steps in Digital Design, Page One Publishing, Singapore.

Reep, DC 2006, Technical Writing: Principles, Strategies, and Readings, 6th edn, Pearson Education, USA.

Neilsen, J 2008 , viewed 13th April 2009,
www.useit.com/alertbox/applicationmistakes.html

Schriver, K,A, 1997, Chapter 6 in Dynamics in Document design:Creating Text For Readers', Wiley Computer Publisher, New York

Singer, D 2002, Ten steps to document design,University of Alabama, viewed 14th April 2009,
www.uah.edu/colleges/liberal/english/shared/doc_des_singer.htm

Everything happens for a purpose

(Amazon.com, 2009)

The purpose of this blog is to review, discuss, and reflect upon the various issues pertaining to design and publication. Now, more than ever, it is prudent and significant to discuss these issues not only among peers (fellow classmates studying Issues in Publication and Design) but also professional document designers. Through this blog, I would like to reach out to the urban technology savvy users and document designers in terms of how to produce a good document and document designs. According to (Kress & van Leeuwen 2006, p.17), the Internet offers a ‘complex interplay of written text, images and other graphic or sound elements …' That is why I have opted to use the privilege of blogs as a platform of discussion.

Reference

Kress, G & van Leeuwen, T 2006, Reading Images: Grammar of Visual Design, Routledge, London.