Chapters 1 and 2 Highlights

Chapter 1: What is Document Design?

This chapter introduces us to the subject of document design, which, as the authors point out, is part of a larger field called Information Design (ID) (p. 2-3). Basically, effective design stems from understanding audiences and purposes for a potential document. You might have had discussions about audience and purpose in other classes, and you should have because they are the key elements to consider when communicating: The best communication in the world will fail if the author doesn't understand his or her audience and doesn't have a clear sense of the purpose of the communication.

Below are the groups that make up the document design relationship:

• Clients

• Users

• Designers

An effective designer is aware of his or her clients' and audiences' needs and, more importantly, expectations. Being culturally aware helps uncover a broad range of user expectations. Remember, users are members of cultures who understand meanings that are constructed by their experiences and lives in a particular society.

Chapter 1 also brings up levels of design. Resources (e.g. money and time) will always be a consideration. Review the following areas for determining level of design (pp. 14-15):

• Polished vs. rough production values

• Customization vs. consistency

Chapter 1 concludes with an introduction to rhetoric, which is a subject we'll analyze throughout the semester, and highlights two appeals we ought to examine:

• Ethos:
  1) the presentation of or appeal to one's character
  2) the characterization of a document or speaker (consider this to be the "look and feel" of a document)

• Pathos: appeal to emotions

We will come back to ethos and pathos throughout the semester. Please, please, please ask questions if the terms are confusing. If we have time tonight, though, we're going to go over assumptions based on experience, bias, conventional wisdom, etc.

Chapter 2: Principles of Design

This is a foundational chapter. We won't go over this in too much detail because the concepts will be explored in more depth in later chapters. Below I've listed some important terms from the chapter (please follow along in the book):

• Design Objects--text is visual

• 7 Visual Variables

  • Shape: two dimensional area covered
  • Orientation: the directions in which the design points users
  • Texture: pattern applied to objects
  • Color: [not much more to say]
  • Value: relative lightness and darkness of an object compared to its surroundings (important when we discuss contrast)
  • Size: bigness or smallness of objects
  • Position: location on a two dimensional plane

• Six Principles of Design

  • Similarity: how alike objects are
  • Contrast: emphasis; calling attention to
  • Proximity: grouping and belonging (not direction per se as in orientation)
  • Alignment: showing connection and coherence
  • Order: users have socially constructed expectations for sequences in documents based on their experiences in a culture
  • Enclosure: boxes or such for containing or separating objects

We will return to the above concepts throughout the semester, so please make sure you're using the appropriate vocabulary because these terms capture design principles and help us quickly and (one hopes) accurately assess your documents' effectiveness.

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