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>