Understanding document design helps you present information that is easy to read, easy to access and understand, and easy to use.

All too often, though, student writers believe that good document design only applies to "special documents" such as letters of application and résumés. In fact, in every document you write, from your grocery list to your term paper in History, careful and thoughtful attention to design will increase your ability to get your point across and make a positive impact.

Once you have a clear sense of audience, purpose, and context, you can apply the following principles to your documents:

1) Use highlighting devices to direct the reader's eye and create emphasis.

Typographic devices (boldface, italics, shading), rules, and boxes can distinguish items in a text, emphasize a specific section, and help the reader locate main sections.

Strategies

• Use Italics and bold text sparingly to create emphasis. Compare:

When you want to emphasize something, consider using bold text.
When you want to emphasize something, consider using bold text.

Too much bold text dilutes the effect.

• Use italics for emphasis or to show irony or humor.

His rent was late for the third straight month.

• Use capital letters for emphasis only. Using all capital letters in body texts becomes monotonous and hard to read; in an e-mail message, all caps equates to "shouting."
  
  
• Don't overuse exclamation marks and underlines. Be angry, or perhaps angry, but not angry!!! Underlining, particularly on web pages, can cause confusion because hypertext links are typically underlined.
  

2) Use Color (to include black and white) to create order in a document or symbolize information.

Effective use of color can help the reader identify recurring themes (titles and subtitles), reveal patterns and relationships (charts/graphs), and speed searches. It can also aid in decision-making.

In additon, certain colors have different connotations depending on the professional audience:

 

Color	Engineering	Medicine	Finance
Blue	Cold / water	Death	Reliable / corporate
Red	Danger	Healthy / oxygenated	Loss
Green	Safe / Environmental	Infection	Profit

Strategies

Use color to -

• Accomplish specific goals (to warn or caution for instance).
• Communicate, not decorate.
• Prioritize information. Readers will go to bright colors first.
• Symbolize. Draw on your knowledge of your readers.
• Identify a theme that recurs or to sequence information.
• Code different symbols or sections to make searching for information easier.

 

3) Use white space to organize information into chunks and guide the reader's eye.

"White space" describes the open space on a page not filled by other design elements. It can be the spaces between letters, words, lines within a paragraph (leading), or paragraphs themselves. It also includes the margins of a page (usually one to one-and-a half inches), and the space surrounding graphics. Used effectively, white space can guide the reader’s eye from one point to another.

Strategies

Use white space to -

• Create vertical or horizontal spaces that aid in laying out a manual, brochure, or newsletter.
• Prevent overcrowding.
• Keep design elements that are related together.
• Isolate and emphasize key information.

4) Use ragged right-hand margins to increase reading comprehension.

While exceptions exist (i.e., advertising brochures, tables), most writers align left margin and use a ragged, or unjustified, margin on the right.

Although many professionally printed texts use justified margins (each line of text ending at exactly the same position) on both sides, research has shown that ragged right-hand margins help readers process information more quickly.

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