Basic Principles

• Who are the readers? What are their concerns? How is that related to your document design?
• What form or genre do the readers expect? What features would be characteristic to that form? What visual evidence would they expect?
• What problems and constraints will your readers face? How will your document address them?
• What is the purpose of your document? How can the design help you achieve it? How can it enhance your credibility?

Know Your Readers

• http://online.wsj.com/public/us
• http://news.bbc.co.uk/
• http://english.aljazeera.net/
• http://www.people.com/people/
• http://www.ign.com/
• http://www.shockwave.com/home.jsp
• http://www.vw.com/
• http://www.volkswagen.de/vwcms_publish/vwcms/master_public/virtualmaster/de3.html

What Do Your Readers Expect?

• What are the general conventions for the population of readers your page/document is aimed for?
• For reports: word-processed, page number, title, author, class.
• MLA format / Chicago style, technical writing formats.
• Readers constraints.

Remember Your Purpose

• There is usually an argument, theme, point of view that the author wants to convey to the readers.
• What is the message you want to get across?
• Have a clear focus.
• Be convincing.

Effective Design

• Using a prominent element. Think of you message and how to give it prominence.
• Choosing fonts:
• Size: where will the readers be staying while reading them? PowerPoint slides: at least 18 points.
• With serif or sans serif. Sans serif are cleaner but less readable: use them for headlines or text that you want to stand out. Recommended to use only one of each.
• Italics: emphasize words, like titles, foreign words, definitions.
• Bold: for emphasis purpose only. “Raisin bread” effect.
• White space: allows the eye to catch important things better.

Organization

• Bulleted lists can be effective to enumerate things when the order isn’t significant.
• Numbered lists are good for things that follow a plan where the order is important.
• Headings: they help structure the document. They need to have a consistent style and alignment. Too many levels can be distracting.
• Using repetition purposefully, especially visual.
• Using color effectively: make sure that it serves a purpose, use good contrast for the text. Too many colors can overload the readers.

Visuals

• Visuals can benefit to the document.
• Charts, maps, diagrams, tables.
• Integrating visuals and text. In technical papers all the figures and tables need to be numbered and referenced in the text.
• Placing them in the text: close to the discussed point.
• Keep a balance between visuals and text.