Designing effective documents requires planning: you have to take time to consider the writing task and audience you face so that you can determine the format, layout, and visual aids you need to support and enhance your presentation.

So before you begin designing your documents, you need to work through some preliminary steps:

1) Consider your rhetorical situation

Your document design choices are affected by the same things that define your writing task: audience, purpose, and context - the same things covered in the Audience & Purpose module.

Once you know the problem you face, your reader(s), and other considerations such as time and equipment, you can make thoughtful choices about the kind of document you will produce.

For example, if you have to prepare a detailed study of the effects of land development on the feeding habits of coyotes for a city council zoning debate, your document should look very different than it would if you used the same information to write a report for a class in wildlife management.

2) Consider your readers' needs and expectations

Readers need different things from different documents (audience & purpose again!). The same reader approaches an essay about air pollution quite differently than he does a set of instructions concerning the operation of a chainsaw. Equally true is the fact that two people might approach either document differently. An engineer for a chemical plant working to comply with EPA guidelines will read the essay about pollution very differently than will a homeowner who lives downwind from the plant.

As you participate in various communities, pay attention to the way information is presented and received - not everyone plays by the same rules.

For example, while academic readers expect to read documents from beginning to end, few in the work community read that way. In fact, in a study of readers at Westinghouse, researchers learned that less than 30% read the entire document from start to finish. They often limited their reading to the introduction and the conclusion. Thus, if you want to be effective in that community, you would need to ensure that those sections were clear, easy to access, and persuasive.

3) Determine the form and shape of your document.

Once you've analyzed the situation, turn to the following questions to help you visualize the big picture (the entire document) and move to the smaller pictures (the way you integrate the various design elements).

• What format or document type will you use?
• How will you lay out the pages?
• What kind of highlighting devices will you use to create a visible organization? For example, will you use a table of contents? Color?
• What kind of font, typeface, and type size will you use?
• Will you use visual aids? If so, which ones? Why?
• If you use certain aids, such as photographs or drawings, are there any copyright issues or legal concerns you must address first?
• If you use visual aids, how will you integrate them with the text?

4) Create a mock-up version

Once you answer these questions, create a mock-up version of your document, particularly for longer docs. The mock-up will help you think through decisions and see the effects before you create the entire document.

• One way is to storyboard: create a graphic outline of your document on paper.
• Another choice is to lay out several possible options in miniature or "thumbnail." These quickly sketched versions help you visualize how the design elements addressed next work together.

Elements of Document Design-->