Simple but not eye-catching? Or abstract yet confusing? Or somewhere in between?

Document designs are important consideration when developing a document. A reader should be able to find information easily in a document without spending too much time skimming the text. As suggested by Putnis & Petelin (1996), the obligatory of a good document design is to be able to aid the readers to read efficiently and to emphasize the most important content.

Kress and Leeuwen (2006) mentioned that a document in any mode is a form of communication. For instance, documents that are well designed have higher possibility to gain the audience’s attention. For instance, the above slide is considered a well-designed cover as the picture displays the title of the presentation. Reep (2006) also mention that document design helps to increase the usefulness of documents by enhancing audience’s attention as well as guiding readers/audience through the main text (important messages), including eye-catching graphics.

Furthermore, the document designer mentioned more important information in her slides and made a clear-cut of what will be discussed in the presentation in order to give our classmates a better understanding. In order to make it simple, she also used bullets to list her points.

Besides that, I also find the above slide very well presented as the pictures has text to guide readers to understand it. The document designer has also not forgotten to explain the above picture in detail. Schriver (1997) also points out that a document design is vital as it facilitate readers with both their knowledge-driven and text-driven constructions of the text and graphics.

Lastly, a layout design of a document could determine the attractiveness and affect the reader’s ACCEPTABILITY! It should also have a good continuation or good figures that may pull figures out of a background (Bernhardt 1986).

Reference

Bernhardt, S.A 1986, College Composition and Communication, Seeing the text, Vol. 37, No. 1, National Council of Teacher of English.

Kress, G. &van Leeuwen, T. 2006, Reading Images, Chapter 1: The Semiotic landscape: language and visual communication.

Putnis, P, Petlin, R 1996, Professional communication: principles and applications, Writing to communicate, Prentice hall, Sydney.

Reep, Diana. C 2006, Technical writing, Document design, Pearson/Longman, New York.

Schriver, K.A 1997, Dynamics in documents design: creating texts for readers, The interplay of words and pictures, Wiley Computer Pub., New York.