Chapter 11 Summary
Mike Hutton and Cameron Klundt
Information Design
Information Design can be most easily defined as simply the way you organize a document. Burnett explains 5 elements of Information Design that people should be aware of when creating a document
5 Categories of Design
Textual- The characters, such as letters, numbers, and symbols that are used in a document.
Spatial- The white spaces in the document, as well as placement of textual and graphical elements.
Graphic- Visual images, bullets, lines, arrows, punctuation. Any visual aid in a document.
Color and Textural- The details regarding color, such as hue and saturation. Also texture of the surface of document, such as glossy or smooth.
Dynamic- The motion that is implied in a document. The flow that your eyes follow in a document.
Chunking and Labeling Information
Chunking and labeling information creates an easier path for the reader to navigate the document. This involves organizing topically relevant information together. This makes the document flow and makes it easier to understand.
Using White Space to Chunk Information- Once you have deciphered how to organize your document, white space can help you chunk it. There are a few ways to do this:
Margins: the widths of white space on either side, top, and bottom of text.
Alignment: how the text-lines measure up to each other. For example, a fully justified alignment will line up each side of the document, so that each line of text is the same length.
Leading and Line Length: how long the text lines are, and the spacing in between lines. A larger space between lines makes a document easier to read, but creates a longer looking document.
Headings to Label Chunked Information
Used to let the reader easily identify the topic of the upcoming information. Can be a sort of ultra-short summary of the text in that section. Also allow readers to take a mental breath between bits of information.
Arranging Related Chunks of Verbal and Visual Information
When a project is underway it is important to start with a good sold base. The base in Verbal and Visual include how many columns are used and how the pictures are integrated with the text.
Using Design Conventions
When arranging a text it is important to look at the whole page as a grid. This allows an individual to organize the textual and visual chunks. The use of columns is most common. Pages that have one column are often for in-house technical reports, two columns for operation manuals, and three columns for newsletters. How pictures are integrated is important as well. It is preferred to have a picture in with the wording but only if there are a few pictures. Having too many pictures can be distracting.
Avoiding Problems in Arranging Information
Chartjunk- Miscellaneous graphic junk that serves no point
Tombstoning- Making headings to long and posing potential confusion.
Heading placement- Not Having enough space between headings.
Window and orphans- Making sure there are not a few words on the next line resulting in a lot of excess space.
Emphasizing Information
Creating a document or Webpage it is important to make certain information stand out and catch a reader’s eye. There are pre designed web pages that can help you make the right information stand out, in a good way.
Typefaces
When an individual uses a font that affects the reader’s attitudes and reactions it is called typeface.
Serif or sans serif- Most common uses tiny fine lines at the top and bottom of letters.
Typeface variations- Proper selections should influence a reader and should not be difficult to read.
Type Size- Using the proper size font will encourage readers, too large or small will sway readers.
Style Choice- Using different styles including bolding and capitalization can highlight dangers and warnings, will draw attention to important details.
Typographic Devices
It is sometimes needed to distinguish between text with the use of numbered lines, bullets, underlining, boxes, and other various ways.
1.) Number lines are common when a list of instructions is given and a proper order must be followed.
· Bullets are used when all items of a list are equivalent.
Underlining- should only be used for hyperlinks, was originally used in typewriters that did not have a bold or italics keys.
Boxes and shading are used to emphasize information.
Color provides emphasis by allowing information to stand out from the rest of the document.
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20 comments:
Designing information is a ineresting topic in tech-writing. But this topic sound new to me. I do believed this this chapter explains how one need to design information before publishing it to the general public. A information that is not design will not be of interest to the general public.
This chapter contained a lot of new information for me. I've never written anything that I feel would have benefited from the design ideas in this chapter. The only thing I've written have been speeches, and then papers for school where it didn't matter _how_ it looked, just that the information was sound, and it was grammatically correct. In the future though, design is definitely something I will need to pay attention to, and I think I will be referring to Burnett's 5 categories of design when I do.
The way in which our documents or presentations are organized and designed can greatly affect the reader/viewer's interpretations. I was taught in a speech class, when designing a powerpoint, that the slides should be easy for the audience to read. This includes a legible font and color, appropriate sizing, background that won't make it hard for the audience to read, and by making sure there is not too much writing on one page. I think this is important, because you want your information in a presentation to be short, sweet and to the point, without losing interest from the audience. I think this applies to information design because the audience (public) will not get a clear picture if the document isn't designed properly.
Designing is an important topic to think about when you are creating a power point presentation. All of the thoughts on text, spaces, alignments, graphics, and other visuals really need to be given a lot of attention. A presentation is a way of communicating with people. If your design is not very good, you may not get your point across to your audience very well. I have found that when you are creating a power point slide you should put your main points of focus on them and leave out minor details. You should cover these details in your presentation, not every little piece of information needs to be on a slide. Audiences will become overwheled with the information and may not grasp the most important points of your topic.
Chunking common information is a very helpful way of design. Readers will know when they come across a chuck of text or graphics that they are related. Using white space, or spatial are effective methods of separating different information. The use of numbered lines , bullets, underlining, boxes and other ways are a key design feature that help to draw a reader to the important information.
Designing information plays an important role in being able to organize and state information clearly for readers. The information proposed in this chapter is very beneficial in reviewing all aspects which allow your work to flow easier. It helps so that readers can clearly understand what you are trying to put out there. I think visuals help the reader the most when you are trying to describe something so that the reader can have something to picture in their head.
This chapter points alot of information out on how you can get readers to interperet the work you have designed. Its important to to remember that accesibility is an important factor when designing information for others to use. If you design it that doesn't always mean other people can follow or access it as easy as you can.
I find it very interesting that the design conventions provide preset guidelines for several types of technical documentation. I never really noticed that things like operations manuals commonly using a two column format, and newsletters using a three column format. When I consider all the instances I have seen of these types of documents, the majority of them certainly do follow the format set by the design conventions. The concept of design conventions really made me think about the many ways that technical documents can vary from each other.
This chapter included some things that I have never thought about before, such as chunking. This is a very good way to design a page to keep your audience interested though. It adds more to the reading and may help the audience member understand a little more about they are reading about. There is a trick to it though, you need to know the right time and place to add the chunking to really make it the most affective.
Designing your layout to be visually appealing to the reader and easy for them to locate and understand the information is important. Creating headings, being aware of spacing, using color, numbers, and bullets where appropriate all add to the effect. There are so many things to take into consideration when designing your layout of imformation.
organizing the layout of a paper or whatever it might be is important in many fields of business. One especially is advertising. Companies spend a lot of time configuring their ads so that consumers look at them an get the information they need. The dynamic of the ad is key in trying to sell their product.
Emphasizing Information is something that we in this class use all the time in our web pages. When we want to make something stand out we emphasize it so the person viewing it can tell that that is an important part that we want them to see. We use this with everything we do not just in our website.
Using different types of information design can help you catch the eyes of your readers or viewers. If something doesn't look appealing to read then people might not want to read it. And if your presentation doesn't look good then nobody will want to pay attention to your visuals. I don't really know anything about the chunking and other stuff like that but it was good to learn.
This was a neat chapter to read. I knew that you would want to gear your paper for the majority of the people that were reading it but I didn't know that there were "styles" to the way you wrote it down. Also it was cool to see they different ways you may be screwing up the design of the paper. A neat chapter all around.
I think design is very important to an article. It is definitely easier to read something,like a textbook, with headings telling me what the paragraph is going to be about. It makes it easier if I might have to take notes on something.
I think that information design is important when writing a document.One thing that I think is important is chunking information. If you put everything that has to do with a topic in one spot it makes I easier to find that information. I also think that information design is important when doing a power point. I you were to make your print very small or unreadable then it would ruin your presentation.
Before I read this chapter I really didn't realize that there were styles for writing information. I always knew that it was important to use a design that was relevant to the topic you were writing about. I learned a lot in this chapter.
Designing information does not seem too important for us college students, but will come in handy when we get into our careers. however it does come in handy when creating power points. You must organize your information so that you have your key points but you are able to elaborate more from the points. also the organization of you images within the show needs to clean and appealing.
I have to say this has been one of the more interesting topics. Visuals are the best part of presentations. Its the easiest way to keep the reader interested. This would actually be a good guide for the future to keep your readers attention. Your summary may have been shorter than most other groups, but I think it contained just as much useful information as everyone elses. The five categories were pretty fundamental, yet useful. Good job guys.
I think that 50% of what we write is understood through how we present the information. The type of fonts used, the color, the visual elements used, paragraphing , chunking of information and others. Take an example; when we are writing a sad story, it is obvious that we won’t be using bright colors. The fonts will be simple, with dull color and the visual will be according to the theme of the story. Similarly when we look at a newspaper article, we immediately know what type of article that is just by reading the article heading or the photographs used in it.
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