Document design: What is good design

Document design is the physical appearance of a document that integrates the texts and images to provide readers the information they need. So, what is a good design? This question could be discussed by using the power point slides prepared by my group. There are some principles and guidelines given in order to design a good document for readers.

A good document design should have consistency along the whole documents in order not to create confusion for readers. Consistency means to present the similar features in a similar style in terms of margins, typeface and also indentations. (Reep, 2006)

Typeface

The above example showed a lack of consistency in typeface where the headings are in different font sizes. It showed that left hand side slide is having a 36 font size, whereas right hand side slide is having a 44 font size. Thus, to create a good document, consistency is vital where same size and style of the type should apply to all headings in a document. (Nielsen 2009)

Graphics Aids

Graphics aids showed to be useful in document where it will help people in understanding the documents or oral presentations. (Reep 2006)

Here is an example of my group presentation where slides 10 showed a flowchart of the topic and slides 11 is an explanation and elaboration of the flowchart. As the flowchart already explained everything, the explanation and elaboration should be best present in verbal form where slides 11 can be excluded in this document. As supported by Russell (n.d.), slides should not contain too many words; listeners would not want to spend their time listen to the presenters who read out their slides.

Reference list

Nielsen, J (2009), “Top ten mistakes in web design”, viewed 10 April 2010, <http://www.useit.com/alertbox/9605.html>

Reep, D. C. (2006) 'Chp 4: Principles of Document Design', Technology Writing, 6th ed, Pearson Edu, Inc., New York, pp. 173-190.

Russell, W n.d., “ Power point presentations-The good, the bad and the ugly”, viewed 10 April 2010, <http://presentationsoft.about.com/od/powerpoint101/a/good_bad_ugly.htm>

New forms of media publishing: Twitter

has become the trend nowadays where it is the major communication method people use to connect with people from worldwide due to its widely coverage and its simplicity. Twitter considered itself as a real-time information network that provides a platform for people to share and discover what’s happening around the world within seconds. It somehow act as an alternative of the traditional instant message in phone, it sometimes thought to be a “SMS of the internet” which keeps you informed with all kinds of information.

This kind of new media is able to reach more people rather than the traditional media.However, it didn’t make the traditional instant message to disappear but it lost its dominant position. (Naughton 2006)It forced them to adapt and move forward to a different place in an ecosystem where now it appears as an application in phone like blackberry. (Blackberry official website)

Due to the lack of regulations in terms of the content of the postings of "tweet", it may create a few issues. One of the issues would be the private and confidential cannot be maintained as now information are exposing to the public. Some people may not want their personal life to be exposed to people all over the world which makes them feel uncomfortable. Besides, the accuracy of the information would be suspect by people as people can post whatever they want, especially when political issues arise. It may eventually lead to a false alarm to certain event, such as election. Sometimes, the information will be circulating on the internet before any confirmation of the trustworthiness of it, however it happen too fast that sometimes it actually gets debunked. (Carvin 2009)

Even Technorati also have twitter icon to let people “follow”, people then can get the latest information from them.

Youtube has a link where people can straight share the video, there will be a pop-up window for you to share the link.

Reference list

Naughton, J 2006, “Blogging and the emerging media ecosystem”, viewed 13 April 2010

Carvin, A 2009, “ Welcome to the twitterverse”, viewed 13 April 2010.< http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=101265831>

Bibliography

Twitter

http://twitter.com

Blackberry official website

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=101265831