Document DesignENC 3241

Clayton Benjamin

Understand The Basics

• Know what decisions to make• Choose a design that fits your situation• Plan your design from the beginning• Reveal your design to the reader• Keep your design consistent

Know what decisions to make

• Know the rhetorical situation• Why are you creating this document?• Who will read your document?• What type of document is it?• Does your company already have a standard

format?• If not, ask your technical writer before

editing the document

Choose a design that fits your situation• Make it usable!• Choose graphics that highlight the information• Don’t add extra information• No table of contents or appendixes for smaller documents

• People want to scan and find information• Bullets and numbering help!

Plan Your Design From the Beginning• Ask yourself• How will readers use this document? In which environment?• Will it be read from beginning to end, or will people jump

around?• Will it be skimmed?• Will it be referenced later?• Are readers familiar with the subject? How much background will

you include?• How familiar are users with this type of doc? Mental Model…

Reveal Your Design to the User• Information must be organized• Use table of contents, headings, figure numbers and page

numbers• In online, content headings link to pages whose titles are like

that in paper documents• Eg: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Florida

Keep Your Design Consistent• Make sure you format all figures the same, you update your

table of contents, version numbers are correct• What types of information will you use?• Graphics? Lists? Paragraphs? Quotes?

• Format all headings the same• H1, H2, H3, H4

Design Effective Pages and Screens• Use white space to group information• Eg:

AcuraHondaFordChevroletTomatoApplePeachOrangeCouchChairOttoman

AcuraHondaFordChevrolet

ApplePeachOrange

CouchChairOttoman

Design Effective Pages and Screens• Single space! Add an extra space between page elements• A computer screen can typically only display 1/3 of a page at a

time

Use a ragged right margin (block or indented?)

Help Readers Find Info• Use frequent and descriptive headings• Is your user coming to the document with questions? Then use

questions as the headings• Is the user coming to the document to complete a task? Then use

verb phrases• Avoid just using nouns because it is harder to predict the info.• Match size to importance• More space before than after

Parallel Structure

Nonparallel HeadingsGraph ModificationsData Selection UpdatingTo Add or Delete ColumnsHow to Change Color or PatternsTitles and Legends Can Be Included

Parallel HeadingsModifying a graphChanging the dataAdding or deleting columnsChanging the color or patternsAdding titles and legends

Page Numbers and Headers and Footers• Number your pages!• Include a header or footer or both• In them you will find:

• The company name• The date of creation• Page number• Version number• And possibly the recipient

For next time

• Read chapter 6