Writing Assignment: write Persuasive Message with Visual

Unit 6

Overview of Basic Principles of Document Design and Use of Visuals

Objectives:

Through this Unit’s readings, you should be familiar with the following topics:

• The importance of ‘design’ • The concept of ‘white space’ • Robin Williams’ ‘four basic principles of design’ • The concept of ‘quadrant design’ • The ways in which ‘visuals’ can be used to good rhetorical effect • When and why to use ‘visuals’ • Some criteria for effective visuals

Read: Locker/Findlay, Chapter 4

Assignment 1 due 11:55 p.m. Sunday Week 6

Overview of Unit 6

This unit is an introduction to and overview of some very basic principles of both document design in general, and the use of visuals within a message as an aid to effective communication. Among other things, through these notes and your reading in the text we will consider some of the criteria for evaluating the usefulness of visuals within messages: when, and how, should they be used? For your Assignment 2 you will write a persuasive message (see Units 7 and 8) that contains an argument supported by at least one visual element (a graph, chart, pictorial image, etc.).

Overview of Basic Principles of Document Design and Use of Visuals

These notes are intended only to highlight some of the basic, general principles you will find articulated in more detail in our text. Some of you will be familiar with these, some not. As you can imagine, there are many resources available to you on these subjects both on-line and in print form. One very good example is Robin Williams’ The Non-Designer’s Design Book (2nd ed., Peachpit Press, 2004). This text is widely and easily available.

The importance of one these general principles, the use of ‘white space’, is very easy to demonstrate. Let’s take the paragraph immediately above and repeat it, without using any white space, typographical features, or punctuation at all. You’ll get the point immediately:

thesenotesareintendedonlytohighlightsomeofthebasicgeneralprinciplesyouwillfindarticulatedin moredetailinourtextsomeofyouwillbefamiliarwiththesesomenotasyoucanimaginetherearemany resourcesavailabletoyouonthesesubjectsbothonlineandinprintformoneverygoodexampleisrobin williamsthenondesignersdesignbook2ndedpeachpitpress2004thistextiswidelyandeasilyavailable

The point, of course, is that you can read this, but a) you really don’t want to (!) and, b) it would take you some time to do so. The absence of any kind of ‘white space’ to demarcate boundaries between linguistic units (words, phrases, clauses, sentences), combined with the absence of any of the graphic devices we commonly use in writing, such as capital letters and punctuation, to reinforce those boundaries and perform other linguistic signaling functions, acts to make ‘writing’ extraordinarily difficult to decode. By the bye, many medieval manuscripts look exactly like this!

Here, we will consider two issues: when and how to use ‘visuals’ per se, for example charts, tables, and other graphic images, within your text, and when and how to apply basic design principles to the layout, organization, and appearance of a document. Taking the latter subject first, we can start with an overriding basic principle (one which applies equally to visuals): document design is not about decoration; it is about using graphic and design elements to guide your reader through a task or toward an understanding: in other words, it is and should be ‘reader focused’. Reviewing Locker/Findlay Chapter 4 and the examples therein will provide you with a good, clear introduction to specific points under this general principle. Here are the most important ones:

n Use blank (empty) space on a page/inside a graphic to create emphasis, to highlight information that you want your reader to notice, through ‘separation’ (in the trade, this is referred to as ‘using White Space’; see page 80)

n Headings work the same way, by ‘chunking’ information into discrete, manageable ‘bits’; notice, however,

n the need to limit the use of FULL CAPS WHICH TEND TO HIDE THE SHAPES OF INDIVIDUAL WORDS AND SO MAKE YOUR PROSE MORE DIFFICULT FOR YOUR READER TO READ, and

n the caution against using multiple fonts (both as to style and size) in a document. Doing this tends to create a false, and potentially misleading, sense of ‘contrast’ for your reader (see also ‘Contrast’ below)

n Note page 88 on the use of ‘justification’: when to use full justification, and when to use ‘ragged right margins’.

n Note also pages 90 – 1 on the use of ‘attention getters’, and the use of ‘colours’; the latter are especially important because their significance (to a given reader) is heavily culture-dependent (see further page 122 in Chapter 5).

More generally, you might find Robin Williams’ ‘Four Basic Principles of Design’ (Williams, pg. 13 et seq.) helpful:

Contrast

Avoid having elements on a page that are merely similar. If the elements are not the same, make them very different.

Repetition

Use repeated visual elements (patterns, headings, fonts, colours, etc.) to organize and unify.

Alignment

Every element should visually connect with another; avoid apparently arbitrary placement (i.e. don’t do what I’m doing here!)

Proximity

Items conceptually related should be visually related (grouped together); doing this creates a sense of structure for your reader, which helps her/him follow your exposition, whatever the subject.

If you think about it for a moment, these principles work in just the same way as the principle of coherence does in writing, e.g. as it operates in paragraphs.

Finally, on this, note the brief discussion at Locker/Findlay pages 89 - 90 on ‘Quadrant design’ principles. These important design principles are predicated on the fact that for Western readers (that is, persons raised in or acculturated to European-based languages, and some others, the points of emphasis on a ‘page’ (conditioned by ‘left-to-right’ eye-movement when reading) are upper left (most emphatic) >>>>>> upper right (non-emphatic) >>>>>>> diagonally back to lower left (non-emphatic) >>>>>>> lower right (secondary position of emphasis. In other words, readers will best absorb information presented and the beginning of a page (or sentence, or paragraph), or at the end of a page (or sentence, or paragraph), and will tend not to retain the ‘stuff’ they read/find/see ‘in the middle’. See also Figures 4.7 and 4.8 on page 91.

Turning now to ‘visuals’ more specifically – the use of charts, tables, images, and other devices within your text – we start with the same basic principle: reader focus. The point of using these kinds of devices is not decorative, but rather to help your reader:

n through a task, or to do something n to see a point being made in a discussion or argument n to take in information n to remember something

The incidental effect of using visuals is to make ‘you’ look good when they work (!); the problem, of course, is that when they don’t serve any real purpose, you merely look pompous, silly, unserious, incompetent or some combination thereof!! So, the first question to answer is: when to use graphics to present information, or other visuals (e.g. images) to make a point? When you want:

n to deliver spatial information/relationships n to represent and organize statistical relationships

n to produce a strong, immediate impact (on your reader) n to emphasize a main point made or argued in your text

Our text provides (pages 92ff) more detailed discussion, with examples, as to how the various kinds of graphics (charts, tables, graphs) differ, and how/when they each should be used. Here, we might note that tables should be used when you want/need your reader to identify exact values/numbers, whereas charts and graphs (note the difference) should be used to focus your reader’s attention on relationships

n of part to whole (‘pie chart’) n over time (line graph) n comparison (bar chart) n frequency/distribution (line graph or bar chart) n correlation (line graph, bar chart OR ‘dot graph’)

The use of images (line drawings, photographs, and similar) is usually driven by the need to reinforce the authenticity or legitimacy of a point being made; to show an item or concept actually being used/playing a role; or to force your reader to focus on some specific visual detail(s).

Finally, for ‘visuals’ in general, a checklist:

n Is its purpose clear? n Does it have a Title indicating that purpose? n Is there a clear reference to it, and some discussion of it, in your text? n Are ‘units’ of measurement, or value, clear as to both quantity and what they

denote? n If data are presented, is the source given (if not internal)? n Is the visual’s organizational principle going to be clear to your reader? n Last, but by no means least, back to our first principles: Is it (the visual)

either necessary or useful to your reader’s understanding?