Document Design: What is a good document?

Each document has a unique solution for presenting a sense of ‘experience’. Whether which part of the document designers are trying to highlight, they have one thing in common – each is designed to communicate with its reader. One way for document designers to approach its audience is through visual presentation that channels readers’ visual inspection of the document through the use of space, size, position, proximity, and clarity of the image in order to generate a clear visual presentation and physical appearance that supports both prose and graphics in a document (Zimmerman and Perkin cited in Schriver 1997, p. 374).

Take a look at the PowerPoint slides (image 1 - 4). It lacks subtle interactions between readers and documents.

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However, the indefinite visual meaning of the slides above can be improved by...

Frame of reference may not be shared by readers and document designers may not perceive. But it comes from various sources which interact during document designs and separate the roles of knowledge-driven and text-driven interpretation. For example, personal knowledge, beliefs, attitudes, values and cultural knowledge of the readers with knowledge about writing and design, knowledge of the topic; knowledge of the goal for the content; textual and graphic knowledge of documents; knowledge of capabilities and limitations of technology of the document designers (Schriver 1997, p. 370).

As mentioned by Kress and Van Leeuwen (1996, p. 17) “…writing is itself a form of visual communication.” However, interpretation of each document lies within its audiences’ unique knowledge, attitude, and belief. As discussed by Kosslyn (1994) and Winn (1991) “…if readers are not knowledgeable searchers, complex graphics may pose significant problems for them, for they call on a different way of interpreting that has few ground rules about when to look at what.”

Therefore, it is essential for document designers to consider the reader’s individual difference and the shared ways that people experience documents. To recognise the problem of how readers come to understand or misunderstand documents is a challenge for document designers to overcome and hone. Such as, considerable body of theory and research about what people do as they engage with prose and graphics, or through observation that are drawn from a variety of disciplines that study how people construct meaning from prose and graphics (I. A. Richards cited in Schriver 1997, p.366).

Although document designers can’t learn everything and understand everything about the readers of documents, but the observations on how people construct meaning from documents they read or interpret will give documents designers a better understanding and even obtain better ideas about the readers’ interpretation.

References:

• Schriver, KA 1997, Dynamics of Document Design: Creating Texts for Readers, Wiley Computer Publishings, New York.
• Putnis, P & Peterlin, R 1996, Professional Communication: Principles & Applications, Prentice Hall, Sydney.
• Gunther, K & Van Leeuwen, T 1996, Reading Images: The Grammar of Visual Design, Routledge, United Kingdom.
• Street, R & Street R 1998, Creative Newsletters & Annual Reports, Rockport, United States.
  
• Rothman, S, What Makes Good Scientific and Technical Writing? viewed 5 September 2009, http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/9447/error
  

Purpose

This blog will provide a better understanding of the relationship between designers and documents, and will specify the overviews of document design and its potential audiences’ behaviors.