Ch. 13: Page Design in Workplace Documents

• Understand why document design is important
• Well-designed pages are much easier to navigate and become more engaging
• People would prefer to skim a document and be able to find specific sections
• An audience judges first by what they see-is this too much work to read?
• Page design should promote chunking
• Learn design skills that are needed in today's workplace
• Desktop Publishing: 
• combines word processing, typesetting, and graphics
• Adobe InDesign, Adobe Framemaker, Quark
• Electronic Publishing
• documents in digital format for the Web
• Adobe RoboHelp, Adobe Dreamweaver
• Style Sheets and Style Guides
• Style sheets provide consistent formatting throughout a document (typefaces, fonts, headings)
• Style guides ensure consistent formatting between different types of documents
• Know how to use white space and margins
• Consistency is key
• Different types of paper can be used for different documents
• Use page numbers, headers, and footers so that readers can easily navigate the document
• Grids are useful for creating a balanced design
• White space can add emphasis to an area by isolating related elements
• Margins help to de-clutter the page
• Line Length and Spacing
• Line length needs to be appropriate for the document.
• 8½ x 11 in. document- 60-70 characters per line
• Long lines tire and bore the reader; Short lines disrupt the normal rhythm of reading.
• Line spacing needs to be consistent
• Paragraphs
• Long paragraphs are used for history/ background information.
• Short paragraphs make complex information easier to digest
• Avoid orphans and widows at the beginning and end of a paragraph.
• Lists
• Embedded lists are used within the running text (commas)
• Vertical lists are dropped out of the running text to draw attention
• Vertical lists use a verbal or visual signal to indicate each element
• Use parallel grammatical form
• Know how to choose typefaces and type sizes
• Typeface (font) refers to all the letters and characters within one particular family
• Different typefaces convey different feelings and are useful for different situations
• There are serif typefaces and sans serif typefaces
• Serif typefaces make printed copy more readable
• Sans serif type is ideal for marginal comments,headings, examples, tables, and captions
• Typeface height is determined in points between the ascender and descender
• Body copy runs between 10 and 12 point
• The book says to use full caps sparingly and save them for section headings or highlighting words/phrases.
  (Full caps are actually more difficult to read, which makes people more likely to ignore them. Although it is common practice to use all caps for things like WARNING and headings, this is not the most effective method of getting someone to read. Emphasis can be achieved by using bold, underlined, different sized, different colored fonts. Warning or Warning or Warning or Warning or Warning is more effective than WARNING.)
• Know how to use color, shading, and other highlighting elements
• Indents, horizontal rules, background screens, boldface, italics, and color can all add emphasis, however, these things should all be used sparingly or a document will become cluttered.
• Know how to use headings, subheads, and running heads
• Headings should determine level
• Types of Headings:
• Topic: Words or short phrases; When you have several headings
• Statement: Sentence; When you want to assert something specific about the topic
• Question: Questions posed the same way a reader might ask it; When you want to invite the reader to be actively involved
• Headings should be visually consistent and grammatically parallel 
• Running heads and feet help readers find material and stay oriented
• Understand that on-screen documents have special design requirements
• One of the most important things to do before designing a document is determining the media for viewing.
• Web pages have to be designed to accommodate small screen sizes, decreased resolution, and resistance to scrolling. 
• Ordinary word processors are not very useful for creating good-quality web pages.
• Online help pages require consistency
• Adobe Acrobat and PDF Files retain their formatting on screen and in print . They can be linked to as a normal web page as well as downloaded and e-mailed.