Designing Documents

Document design is the process of choosing how to present all of the basic document elements so your document's message is clear and effective.

1. Significance of Document Designing

Document design is the process of choosing how to present all of the basic document elements so your document's message is clear and effective. When a document is well designed, readers understand the information more quickly and easily. Readers feel more positive about the topic and more accepting of its message

Effective writing is more than just choosing the right words. And it’s more than correct sentences organized in logical paragraphs. To be effective, your document must also look like it will be easy to read and easy to understand.

You have many choices about how a page or screen will appear to your readers. For example, you could integrate illustrations, include audio and video, incorporate links to pages or sites with more information, invite comments from your readers, or encourage readers to share your information through e-mail or social media. It is also easy to overwhelm and confuse your readers with these elements.

2. Designing Effective E-mail

On the job, you will probably write and receive more e-mail messages than any other kind of document. If you design your e-mail messages for quick and easy reading, efficiently, here are five simple guidelines to follow:

i. Keep your message brief

E-mail is especially effective for brief messages that the recipient will read and reply to quickly. Long messages should be in attachments.

ii. Use short paragraph

Short paragraphs separated by white space encourage quick reading and make it easy for your recipient.

iii. Use subject line to specify message

A clear and specific subject line will preview your message for your recipients, making their reading easier and aiding their understanding.

iv. Use headings to identify section of message

Headings make it easier for your recipient to skim your message for its chief points and assist in later retrieval of specific information in your message.

v. Ask simple yes/no questions

Make it easy for your recipient to reply to your message with the briefest possible answer.

3. Principles of Document Design

Effective document design is built on principles of visual perception on how human beings perceive and interpret visual information.

i. Contrasts

Different items must be visibly different, especially more important and less important items.

ii. Alignment

Related items must be aligned with each other, and every item must be aligned with some other item (or risk looking misaligned).

iii. Proximity

Related items must be positioned close together.

iv. Size

Greater size implies greater importance.

v. Repetition

Repetition of design creates unity and builds familiarity.

4. Understanding the basics of document design

Readers judge a document by how it looks as much as by what it contains. In fact, their earliest impression comes from the appearance of the document, not its content. A dense page of long paragraphs will often discourage or annoy readers even before they begin reading. A page designed to help readers locate important information, however, may add to the persuasiveness of your position or convince your readers to put a little more effort into finding what they need and understanding what they find.

The following five guidelines will help you adapt the principles of perception to plan your document’s visual design

i. Know what decisions are yours to make

Many companies have a standard format or template for reports, letters, proposals, e-mail messages, and websites. Before you develop your document, determine the pertinent design requirements. Don’t change the format arbitrarily just to be different. Don’t use exotic or sophisticated software. The typical word processing program has all the functions needed to create a visually effective document.

ii. Choose a design that fits your situation

Document should be simple. Table of contents is not necessary in many cases Appendices and media should be only added if necessary. Most people read technical and business documents selectively. They try to grasp the main points quickly. They could be reading your document on their smartphones, tablets, or laptops while traveling to and from the job site, while sitting in meetings, and while multitasking in their offices. So document should be concise.

For example, users working with a software application are unlikely to read the entire user’s manual. They want to get to the right page or screen immediately. Numbering/bullets should be used as it makes reading quick.

iii. Plan your design from beginning

Before you start writing, carefully consider how you will organize and display your information. Ask questions like the following:

• How will your readers use the document?

• How familiar are your readers with the subject and kind of the document?

• Situation of reader while reading document?

If, for example, readers are likely to skim your document, adding a table of contents, a subject index, and headings on every page will help them find information quickly.

If readers don’t know much about the topic of the document, a glossary of keywords and abbreviations might be necessary.

If readers are unfamiliar with a particular kind of document, they might benefit from a simple and explicit design that avoids distracting variations or unnecessary decorative elements.

If the document is going to be read on a screen, you may have both more constraints and more choices than if the document were printed on paper.

If readers are mobile, your document could be competing for their attention with all the distractions in their changing environment.

iv. Reveal your design to readers

Information should be organized such that passage makes sense as it is read and it should fits with previous passage. Tables of contents and headings reveal the organization, scope, and direction of your document Using headings in a memo, e-mail message, or brief report will show the structure and logic of the discussion and help readers recognize, remember, and retrieve your major points.

v. Keep your design consistent

Consistency in design makes for easy reading. You must develop a page or screen design that will work for your situation and don’t change it for arbitrary reasons. To achieve consistency, identify the different types of information in your document. First, think about all the types of information you will need to display. Second, plan a design that always shows the same type of information. Third, use the style function of your word processing program to label and fix the design of each type of information.

5. Designing effective pages and screens

Visually effective pages and screens are designed on a grid so that readers know where to look for information. Using space inside the text, around the graphics, and in the margins will keep pages uncluttered and information easy to locate. The following suggestions will help develop visually effective pages and screens.

i. Use blank space to frame and group information

Space is a critical element in design for both paper and screens because it makes information easier to find and read. Clear and generous margins make information look organized and coherent. If you are putting your work in a binder, be sure to leave room for the binding so that holes don’t punch through the text. On a standard 8½ by 11–inch page, use the following margins.

top margin 1 inch

bottom margin 1 inch

left margin 1 inch, if material is not being bound

1½ inches, if material is being bound

right margin 1 inch

Here are three techniques to bring active space (space inside text) to your pages and screens.

• Use headings frequently

• Use bulleted lists for three or more parallel points.

• Separate paragraphs with extra blank space, or indent the first line of each paragraph.

ii. Space line of texts for easy reading

It’s customary in paper documents to use single spacing. When you use single spacing, insert an extra line between paragraphs. Drafts of documents submitted for review and editing are often double-spaced. For documents that will be read on screens, use single spacing, with an extra line inserted between paragraphs Double spacing is rarely used for continuous text on the screen because it increases the need for scrolling.

iii. Adjust line length to the size of the page or screen

The number of words that fit on a line depends in part on the size and style of type that you are using. Long lines of text should be avoided as they fatigue readers. Short lines are also difficult to read because readers are almost continuously shifting their eyes from the right margin to the left margin.

iv. Use a ragged right margin

Although text is almost always lined up on the left margin.It is sometimes also aligned on the right margin. Justified type gives a document a formal appearance, whereas ragged right type gives a document a friendly, informal feeling. Justified text is often more difficult for readers because every line is the same length, thus eliminating a visual signal that helps readers both to keep track of each line and to locate the next line of text.

v. Position words and illustrations in a complementary relationship

The visual and verbal information in your document must reinforce each other, working together to communicate your message. Position each illustration as close possible to the text that relates or refers to it. Keep in mind also that readers will typically examine the illustrations on a page or screen before giving their attention to the words in captions, headings, and paragraphs. Make sure the text adjacent to each illustration supports the message of the illustration and doesn’t lead to misinterpretation.

6. Helping readers to locate information

To help your readers find what they need and make sense of what they find, you must plan a useful structure for your document and make that structure evident to your readers. On the job, readers of technical and business documents rarely examine every page. They may glance over the table of contents and then pick and choose the sections to read. They may skim through the document. Following are four ways to help your readers find information easily.

i. Use frequent headings

Frequent headings help readers know where they are in a document at all times. You want to keep each topic short (one to three paragraphs) and give each topic a heading.

ii. Right descriptive headings

Headings are the short titles that you use to label each section and subsection of your document. Headings are the roadmap to your document. These five suggestions will help you write useful headings:

• Use concrete language.

• Use questions, verb phrases, and sentences instead of nouns alone.

• Use standard keywords if readers expect them.

• Make the headings at a given level parallel.

• Make sure the headings match any list or table of contents in the document.

iii. Design distinctive headings

Headings do more than outline your document. They help readers find specific parts quickly, to help readers, headings have to be easily distinguished from the text and each level of heading. These seven suggestions will help you design distinctive headings:

• Limit the number of heading levels.

• Create a pattern for the headings and stick to it.

• Match size to importance.

• Put more space above a heading than below it.

• Keep each heading with the section it covers.

• Use headings frequently.

• Consider using numbers with your headings.

iv. Use page numbers and headers or footers

In addition to clearly worded and visually accessible readings, page numbers and running readers and footers are important aids to efficient reading.

Number the pages

Page numbers help readers keep track of where they are and provide easy reference points for talking about a document. If the document is going to be read on screens, inserting page numbers could be unnecessary. If readers are likely to print your digital document, however, they will certainly appreciate your inclusion of page numbers. In slides prepared for oral presentations, you will help your audience to track your progress and to stay attentive. Always leave at least two lines of space between the text and the page number. Put the page number in the same place on each page. Page numbers at the bottom of the page often have a hyphen on each side. The body of a report is usually paginated continuously, from page 1 to the last page. For the appendices, you may continue the same series of numbers, or you may change to a letter-plus-number system. Numbering appendices with the letter-plus-number system has several advantages:

• It separates the appendices from the body. Readers can tell how long the body of the report is and how long each appendix is.

• It indicates that a page is part of an appendix and identifies which appendix.

• It makes pages in the appendices easier to locate.

• It allows the appendices to be printed separately from the body of the report.

• Sometimes the appendices are ready before the body of the report has been completed, and being able to print the appendices first may save time and help you meet a deadline.

• It allows the pagination of either an appendix or the body to be changed without requiring changes in the other parts.

Include headers or footers

In long documents, it helps readers if you give identifying information at the top or bottom of each page. Information at the top of the page is a header; information at the bottom of the page is a footer . A typical header for a report might show the author’s name, the title of the report, and the date A typical header for a letter might show the name of the person receiving the letter, the page number, and the date.

Note that headers and footers rarely appear on the first pages of documents because first pages already carry identifying information like the title, author, recipient, and date.

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