Dynamics in Document Design: Creating Text for Readers

Features

• Cover Type: Paperback with 592 pages
• Published by: Wiley
• Edition: 1st Edition December 31, 1996
• Written in: English
• ISBN 10 Number: 0471306363
• ISBN 13 Number: 978-0471306368
• Book Dimensions: 9.2 x 7.5 x 1.3 inches
• Weighs: 2.2 pounds

Product Description
From an international leader in document design, research-based insights about writing and visualizing documents that people can use . . .

This book is for writers and graphic designers who create the many types of documents people use every day at home or school, in business or government. From high-tech instruction manuals and textbooks to health communications and information graphics, to online information and World Wide Web pages, this book offers one of the first research-based portraits of what readers need from documents and of how document designers can take those requirements into account.

Drawing on research about how people interpret words and pictures, this book presents a new and more complete image of the reader--a human being who is not only trying to understand prose and graphics but who is responding to them aesthetically and emotionally.

Written by document design expert Karen A. Schriver, Dynamics in Document Design features:
* Case studies of documents before and after revision, showing how people think and feel about them
* Analyses of the interplay of text and pictures, revealing how words, space, visuals, and typography can work together
* A fascinating and informative timeline of the international evolution of document design from 1900 to the present

Publisher Description
In this book, one of the world's premier researchers in the evolving field of document design and communication takes a probing look at exactly how people read documents and how they create them. This book provides numerous examples and case studies to assist writers and designers in creating effective documents. Examples include before and after case studies based on user responses, studies of actual design scenarios (including the first technical illustration of the HIV virus), and examples from Scientific American. The Sears Catalog, IRS, The New York Times, and many others.

Reader Reviews
As a designer of technical documentation for almost 12 years, I have studied, and used many of the concepts that Karen Schriver presents so well, in this definitive book on documentation design. For myself, finding this information and learning how to apply it to real-world situations was been a long and frustrating process, and there were many times when I wished for a book such as this. Dynamics in Document Design is not a how-to book, nor is it a set of guidelines. It is information compiled from extensive research that provides designers and writers with the many variables that can be used to make a document accessible to the reader. I am currently teaching document design as part of a technical writing certificate program at a local community college and Dynamics in Document Design is our recommended textbook. I am confident that Shriver's new book will become the reference bible for what many are referring to as the "emerging field" of document design (even though it has been emerging for more than a decade). In her Preface, Shriver states that she "...decided to write this book because it has been difficult to find resources devoted to helping document designers reflect on the nature of good writing and design from the perspective of the reader." Thank you Ms Schriver! This book should be read, not only by designers and writers, but just as importantly, by the companies whose products require documentation. I'm sure that many will be surprised by the correlations made between the quality of a product's documentation and the perceived quality of the product itself. I can't say enough good things about this book. Buy it and read it and use it to create good usable documentation!