Document Design

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Document Design

• Justine Nielsen
• English 518 Tech Comm Theory
• April 24, 2003

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Document Design

• Analyze your audience
• Determine appropriate information architecture
  and medium
• Design for use
• Select effective design tools

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Analyze Your Audience

• Reconsider your audience
• Who are they?
• What do they want or need?
• How will they use the material?

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Analyze Your Audience

• Who is your user?
• Technical ability
• Interest in the subject
• Translation needs (language options)

More to come at Jen and Ryans May 1st
presentation onGlobalization Issues
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Analyze Your Audience

• What is your users goal?
• Complete a task
• Solve a problem
• Make a decision

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Analyze Your Audience

• How will they use the document?
• Location
• Duration
• Motivation

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Analyze Your Audience

• Become a user advocate
• Firsthand knowledge is best Whenever possible,
  learn the procedure or use the product yourself
• Test usability Speak with or observe users of
  the product or document (find something similar
  if the original is unavailable)

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Analyze Your Audience

• User advocates design documents
• to help readers quickly and easily find accurate
  information.
• to be used (skimmed), not read.
• to make the process seemintuitive effortless.
• to help users do their work.

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Information Architecture and Medium

• Which medium is most appropriate?
• Do I need more than one medium?
• Do I need more than one version?
• Do I want to use dynamic design, or can I get by
  with static content design?

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Information Architecture and Medium

• Which medium is most appropriate?
• Online
• Print
• Other
• All of the above, a.k.a. Single-Sourcing

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Information Architecture and Medium

• Online
• Layer information to serve a variety of users,
  disclosing ideas hierarchically
• Simple, brief explanations are best for novices
• Experts may require additional detail
• Effectiveness derives in part from both the
  online page or sites design structure and from
  its information content
• Test with various technologies, not just
  bleeding edge versions

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Information Architecture and Medium

• Print
• Consider physical workplace conditions when
  determining page size, substrates, and graphic
  elements (page layout, fonts, colors)
• Index specific, rather than inexact, terms

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Information Architecture and Medium

• Other document formats
• Electronic file (PDF, Excel, raw data)
• Other

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Information Architecture and Medium

• Single-Sourcing
• Content databases (like FrameMaker) quickly
  generate multiple versions in different media
  with varied contentand for different users

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Information Architecture and Medium

• Document Design distinguishes things that are
  different from one another and connects things
  that are related to one another.

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Information Architecture and Medium

• More to come
• at Brads June 5th Information Architecture
  presentation

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Write for Use

• Make information easy to find
• Just chunk it!
• Keep it short (words, sentences, lists,
  procedures)
• Employ long paragraphs (3 sentences) only for
  explanation, not for instruction
• Use jargon judiciously and appropriately
• Use repetition rather than cross-referencing

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Write for Use

• and easy to understand
• Use direct writing style
• For instructions, begin each step with an action
  (verb?) and identify the expected response
• Generate scenarios and analogies to clarify
  content
• Exemplify

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Write for Use

• Lists and Procedures
• Online Maximum 7 items
• Print Maximum 9 items
• Procedure too long?
• Break it down into several steps or consolidate
  steps

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Select Effective Design Tools

• Use text organizers
• Design for visual effectiveness
• Include accurate and relevant technical
  illustrations

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Select Effective Design Tools

• Use Text Organizers
• Headlines
• Kickers
• Subheads
• Headers and footers
• Pull quotes and sidebars
• Bulleted and numbered lists

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Select Effective Design Tools

• Design for visual effectiveness
• Combine words, images and shapes to create a
  visual language
• Clarify abstract or difficult concepts with
  graphics
• Use visual elements (fonts, paragraph spacing,
  colors, graphics) consistently
• In a diagram, use shading or boxes to clarify
  relationships

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Select Effective Design Tools

• Design for visual effectiveness
• Dont overwhelm readers with too much information
  
• Create tables and diagrams break those down into
  simpler, multiple graphics
• Provide ongoing motivation for readers design
  for interest, access, and impact
• Make it memorable
• Avoid intimidating your reader

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Select Effective Design Tools

• Include accurate and relevant technical
  illustrations
• Avoid distortion, deception, and
  misrepresentation

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Select Effective Design Tools

• Include accurate and relevant technical
  illustrations
• Remove distracting chart junk

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Select Effective Design Tools

• Include accurate and relevant technical
  illustrations
• Use appropriate file format (.jpg, .gif, .tif)
  to produce quality images with the appropriate
  screen or output resolution
• Create online images that load quickly

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The Bottom Line

• Why do I need to know this stuff?
• Provide the total package
• Technical communicator vs. writer
• How can I market my design skills?
• Audience analysis, task analysis, verbal
  communication, interpersonal and investigative
  skills, computer programming, graphic design,
  user interface design, visual interactive design

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The Bottom Line

• How could I
• best exhibit these skills to a prospective
  employer?
• See you June 4th
• for our Digital Portfolio session!