Cover image for Dynamics in document design : creating text for readers
Title:
Dynamics in document design : creating text for readers
Personal Author:
Publication Information:
New York : John Wiley & Sons, 1997
ISBN:
9780471306368

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30000004880617 T11 S33 1997 Open Access Book Book
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30000004880583 T11 S33 1997 Open Access Book Book
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Summary

Summary

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 needs 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 person 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


Author Notes

KAREN A. SCHRIVER, PhD, is an internationally recognized expert in document design. Her positions have included the Belle van Zuylen Professor of Language and Communication at the University of Utrecht in Holland, Research Director of the prizewinning Communications Design Center at Carnegie Mellon University, and Research Associate for the National Center for the Study of Writing and Literacy at Carnegie Mellon and the University of California at Berkeley.


Table of Contents

Situating Document Design
What is Document Design? Evolution of the Field: Contextual Dynamics
Observing Readers in Action
How Documents Engage Readers' Thinking and Feeling
The Impact of Poor Design: Thinking about Ourselves as Users of Texts and Technology
Seeing the Text: The Role of Typography and Space
The Interplay of Words and Pictures
Responding to Readers' Needs
What Document Designers Can Learn from Readers
Appendices
Bibliography
Indexes
Colophon