Document Design

Here are some key considerations for document design, outlined, that we have generically discussed up until this point, but that are key to all document design (page 255):

1) To help readers understand the structure and hierarchy of information.
2) To help readers understand information.
3) To help readers remember the information.

Below is an outline of design principles. Along with the reiteration of our textbook, I have connected the three goals above to those design principles below. Your job is to take apply these goals and principles into the design of your documents.


Understanding Design Principles

Proximity - providing enough space between headers and text, between sections and sections. The human eye and mind need text broken up into related ideas, so you will want to make sure you give proper spacing between each of your three main parts of BTS 1.

• Consider the distance between each section, even when use use section headings.
• Consider the distance between a section heading and the text within that section.
• Related material should always be closer together, but still readable.

Alignment - use indention, columns, etc. to help also clarify #1, showing the different levels of importance of information. Section headings, headings, graphics, and the text itself; how do you structure so that the reader can understand?

Repetition - Your purpose is much clearer in your documents if there is some repetition in the specific content within each section. For example, instead of inventing and using different examples to clarify each part you look at one example in different ways in each section (as you were to do with BTS 1's example ethical dilemma!).

Contrast - Bold, italics, COLOR, because using an appropriate amount of COLOR can really help your readers remember specific content. As our text states, readers generally cannot handle more than three colors at a time in effectively reading charts and graphs and other graphics.

Setting Up Your Page

All Word Processing programs give you the ability to change the layout of a page, including the following:

Orientation - Portrait (vertical length) or landscape (horizontal/panoramic)? Portrait is not the best choice for all documents, depending on the purpose of your document. For example, if you intend to fold the paper into a brochure then landscape is spatially a more effective choice if you have a lot of text. You can look for templates of specialized documents, or you can manually set up your own page layout (see Tech Tip, p. 259).

• How many columns do I want?
• What will be the best way to fill up the white space effectively with text and image?
• How many images do I have to incorporate?

Columns - Think of newspapers and magazines. Think of brochures! Again, you want to maximize how much space you use and not have either large g a p s of text & image, or crunchedtext

*For now, due to class focus, we will move on to charts and graphs. However, for a more detailed explanation of page layout concerns and ideas, re-read pages 263-278. Next Tuesday we will return to these pages and practice page layout.

Designing Charts and Graphs

First, it might be helpful to look over this Charts and Graphs tutorial....

Practicing Chart

Below is the data that we will use to familiarize ourselves with making charts and graphs. Though the process can be intimidating (at least it is to me, the professor!), and involves using both Word and Excel, once you get the hang of making the graphics, you'll find them not as hard to really make.


1) Having your data handy is the very important first step. You need:

• The numerical values (money spent, intervals)
  
• The items whose values you are comparing (on Excel they call these "categories")
  
• How many times you plan to compare the items (one year, two year, etc.)

Example: 2010 Budget for Nike-Apple Integration for Apple

1. Project Management combined salary (executive personnel): 200,000
2. Software Design Team combinedsalary: 450, 000
3. Chicago Technology Lab (new division/area): 1 million
4. Ground transportation of product: 300, 000
5. Air Transportation of product/ team members: 150, 000

Okay, above are example budget concerns that may show up in a proposal. All of this numerical data can be better displayed using graphics. Below are steps outlined for using Word 2003.


Microsoft 2003 steps for making a chart:

1) On the Insert menu, click Object, and then click the Create New tab.
2) In the Object type box, click Microsoft Graph Chart, and then click OK.

Microsoft Graph displays a chart and its associated sample data in a table called a datasheet.

3) To replace the sample data, click a cell (cell: A box formed by the intersection of a row and column in a worksheet or a table, in which you enter information.) on the datasheet, and then type the new text or numbers.

Note: If you close the datasheet you can reopen it by double-clicking the chart and then clicking Datasheet on the View menu.