From the Publisher
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.
From the Back Cover
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