Document Design

A document design is a combination of two important elements, which is writing and designing. It focuses on the needs of the readers along with the skillful selection, organized layout and structuring as well as apparent emphasis of the content.

"Document design is the field concerned with creating texts, that is books, pamphlets, posters and others that integrate words and picture in ways that help people to achieve their specific goals for using texts at home, school, or work". (Schriver, 1997)

Some of the functions of a document design include assisting people in decision making as well as helping the readers to understand the visual and context easily and use them in ways that serve their interests, needs and requirements.

According to Reep (2006), "Document design usually refers to the physical appearance of a document". Visual presentation of the text and the printed words which are used to support the message both play important roles in order to attract and capture the readers' attention. The visuals and texts need to support each other well in order to produce a good and effective document design.

A good document design serves as a communication tool and is able to convey meanings and messages to the readers. Anderson (1987) said, "A good document design enables readers to comprehend easily as well as highlighting on the significant points".

Figure 1

According to Walsh (2006), "Images have other effects that are different from words, particularly at effective, aesthetic and imaginative levels. Based on the research I've done on document design, it clearly shows that the combination of texts and images bring better understanding and effects to the readers. In the example of figure 1, readers might not get the message and might get confused just by looking at the image in the the manual without its words to explain. By combining the image with words, readers will get a better idea and understanding on the what the images supposed to mean. Thus this clearly shows that the combination of texts and visuals are more effective in conveying the meanings to the readers as well as to capture their attentions.

Mackenzie (Putnis & Petelin, 1994) opines that type and size of font used as well as the amount of white space between the lines are important factors that are involved and they contributes in producing a good document design.

Figure 2

Figure 2 shows an example of a bad document design. The size of the font used are a little confusing. We can see that the font size of the words "Source: "Acid" Text, Biology-Online" is bigger than the main text of the slide. Readers might get confused and have no clue on which is actually the main point of the text. Besides that, the slide is very wordy and the whole text seems very congested as the words are placed closely to one another. Readers would not pay much attention on a slide which is wordy and lengthy. Clearly, this document is not a good document design and it would not be able to capture the readers' attention. This slide can be improved by changing the font size so that the words does not look congested and is equally spread out.

A good document allows people to use the text in ways that meet their interest and needs (Schriver, 1997). It equally combines visual and text together and is able to clearly convey its meanings and messages to the readers.





List of References

Anderson, P. 1987, "Technical Writing: A Reader-Centered Approach". 2nd ed., Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Orlandao, FL.

Putnis, P & Petelin, R 1996, "Writing to communicate", in Professional communication: principles and applications, Prentice Hall, Sydney, pp. 223-263.

Reep, D. C. 2006, "Document Design". in Technical Writing, 6th ed., Pearson/Longman, New York, p. 133-172

Schriver, A. K. 1997, "Dynamics in document design: creating texts for readers." Wiley Computer Pub., New York.

Walsh, M. 2006, "'Textual Shift': Examining the reading process with print, visual and multimodal texts". Australian Journal of Language and Literacy, vol. 29, no. 1, p. 24-37