Chapter - 9
Effective design and Visual aids
Importance of effective Design and Layout on business writing.
Design is the presentation or placement of test and visuals in a page or screen. And use of color and typography. It is also the process of choosing how to present all of the basic document elements. Effective design and layout is important. Proper design and layout helps to make a document visually appealing and easy to read.
An effective layout not only looks attractive, but also helps the viewer understand the message the design is conveying. In other words, understanding layout is key when it comes to creating user-friendly, engaging designs, particularly in the realms of web design and advertising. The look of the document influences how it is read. Design serves content of the document. The goal of the design is to communicate message clearly. Good design helps readers understand our information. It helps readers locate information quickly. It helps readers notice highly important content. Readers feel more positive about the topic and more accepting of its message. It enhances the readability or usability of our document so that the target audience is more likely to get the message we want them to receive and our document is likely to achieve our intended purpose.
How to Design Attractive Business Documents Everyone is not a born designer. Creating professional-looking documents is easier than we think. If we follow a few simple design rules, we can create attractive, easy-to-read documents and promotional materials that will surely impress our readers.
1. Be objective Good design is not about our personal preferences. Sure, certain aspects of our personality will show through in anything that you create, but at the end of the day, we're designing our business document with a singular purpose: to communicate an important idea, concept, or story. Our goal is to please the audience reading our publication, not our grade eleven art teacher.
2. Design, don’t decorate Good design is about making our document easier to read by visually guiding the readers' eyes to the most important information first. Embellishments such as unnecessary flourishes, bullet points that look like emoticons or serial exclamation marks (!!!!) will distract readers from your main message.
3. Limit fonts to no more than three different styles
Use sans serif fonts for headlines and subheadings, and use serif fonts for body text. An example of a san serif fonts is Arial: it has no 'hooks' on its edges. Serif fonts, such as Times New Roman, have tiny swooshes that reach out from the ends of the letters. Serif fonts make reading longer chunks of text easier on the eyes.
4. Use a simple layout grid We don’t need a grid made up of hundreds of tiny squares when we begin laying out our document. Instead, divide our page into a 9-square grid, then follow the rule of thirds. By organizing our layout into thirds rather than halves and quarters, we'll keep ourselves from breaking rule number 6.
5. Finally, use color to unify the entire document
Familiarize ourselves with the basic principles of how the color wheel works, then choose simple blocks or sections where we can use a few complementary or harmonious colors (hues). Be careful not to use too many colors, though; we want to leave enough white space to give our readers' eyes a break from too much visual stimulation.
Main Design Features of Business Documents
Every business document has a characteristic layout which range from simple layout of an inter office memo to that of a glossy multicolor annual report from a large company. All documents have been put together with some attention to their design. Design is important no matter how humble the document. A well designed document has two main advantages over a poorly designed one.
A well designed document makes a good impression on the reader by suggestion a professional and competent approach. It can enhance the credibility of the person who prepared the document.
A well designed document makes content or information easier to understand.
A poorly designed document presents the material poorly which can put the readers off. It does make a good impression on the readers. The readers may not understand the content or information easily. A simple example would be coursework assignment which students have to complete at college or university. A well-prepared word-processed assignment is likely to gain more marks than its handwritten equivalent no because the tutor is consciously awarding marks for presentation but because the word-processed assignment is easier and quicker to read and looks as if it has been carefully prepared. The poorly word-processed assignment with no page numbers, no subheadings, poorly print, etc can lose marks because it gives the impression of having been knocked together at the last minute.
There is no excuse for poorly formatted documents. We can use modern word processing software to produce most of the characteristics of professional typesetting. As a result, readers have come to expect documents which satisfy the criteria used by graphic designers.
Proportion – where all the elements of the page are clearly in proportion to each other;
Balance – where there is a clear sense of balance to the design of each page;
Contrast – where contrasting parts of the design are used to focus the reader’s interest on the page;
Rhythm – where the reader’s attention is drawn smoothly down the page without distraction;
Unity – where the various components of the page fit together to give a coherent impression.
What business writers need to know about typography
Typography is the art and technique of arranging type to make written language legible, readable and appealing when displayed. The arrangement of type involves selecting typefaces, point sizes, line lengths, line-spacing (leading), and letter-spacing (tracking), as well as adjusting the space between pairs of letters. With modern word processors, writers have a wide variety of typefaces at their disposal. Some writers have abused this facility and produced documents containing many different typefaces. The result is usually messy. Two typefaces are sufficient for most purposes. The choice of typeface is largely subjective, but we need to considered conventional image and likely to impact of the chosen typefaces. Writers should know the main typefaces. They are :-
Type families
Any single typeface can appear if different styles, which make up its 'family'. For example, Arial can appear as: Arial; Arial Black; Arial Narrow. A specific size and style of typeface is usually called a font.
One important type style is italic. This is not a separate typeface but a right sloping version of the basic font. It has several main uses.
to emphasis a particular word or phrase;
to show the name of a book, newspaper, magazine or film;
to indicate a technical term or foreign word;
to indicate a quotation.
Type size
The size of type or font is another way of queuing information. It is usually measured in 'point'. The large size is used for the primary or first level heading, say a title in 18-point type. Eleven or 12 point is common for body text. Whatever it maybe, we should consider or audience before we finally decide o the type size.
Space between lines
The space between lines is called leading. It is also measured in points. The normal point of leading is zero. Increasing in leading does not necessarily make the text easier to read.
Alignment
It is the arrangement of items in a line. Most word processing systems allow us to align our printing on the left-hand side and/or the right hand side of the paper. Professionally typeset material has been aligned on both side.
Categories of typefaces
For practical everyday purposes, we use five main categories of typeface.
Serif :- It has slight projection on the endpoint of the font.
Sans-serif :- Here the letters have no feet, without projection on the endpoint of the font.
Script :- This font is like handwriting.
Display :- Here the typeface as been designed for use in displays such as advertising or posters.
Symbols :- where the alphabet is replaced by symbols.
Which typeface is best?
It is almost impossible to say what the best typeface is, although there is a conventional view that we use serif typefaces for body text and sans-serif for headings. Many designers have different views on the choice of typeface. Many organizations have adopted sans serif typefaces as standard and do not seem to have suffered as a result. The choice of typeface is depend on a number of factors:
a) the purpose of the document;
b) that the readers are used to and what they might expect;
c) how the document might be used. For example, some fonts do not stand up to repeated copying or faxing as some of the letter shapes are too thin.
When are visuals needed?
Visual aids include tables, charts, figures, images etc. of course, the choose of visuals depends on the context and the type of document. They are used to explain the context. They help to illustrate things. They serve as powerful means of presentations. They help to grab reader's attention and interest. They enhance comprehension and make the text easy to read. They clearly and briefly describe process. They describe procedure and structure and explain concepts. It is said that visual aids can explain more than words. They should be organized properly to make a point. They should employ the inverted pyramid form. We express the most important point first, then the second most important, and so on.
The main visual aids and their advantages and disadvantages
We can use a wide range of visual aids in business documents and we need to be aware of their man advantages and disadvantages. There are three main types of visual aids.
Tables
Tables allow us to communicate complicated data efficiently and clearly. Tables use a column and row structure. Both tables are useful in business writing, but need to be incorporated into your document correctly. tables are used to present numerical data or information. tables can be formal. it is better to use formal tables for more extensive datasets, as these can substantially stand alone. an effective formal table has the following characteristics.
It appears in the text in a convenient position after its first mention in the text.
It has an identifying number.
It has clear and informative title.
The data is arranged in some rational order.
Column should have clear descriptive headings.
Important data should be emphasized by its position in the table.
Charts and graphs
Charts and graphs are also important. they make the documents easier for the readers to read and understand. they are used to compare the sizes of several items. modern spreadsheet software will allow us to convert a spreadsheet into a chart or graph. we can choose from an enormous variety of graphs. the variety of graphs are :-
line graphs
scatter diagrams
bar charts
pie charts
histograms
frequency polygons
cumulative frequency curve
Evaluating the Effectiveness and Appropriateness of Visual Aids
Graphic message can be evaluated in terms of certain criteria, like the message in written communication. It is important to emphasizing the importance of a clear purpose and making sure that the audience will be able to interpret the visual aid in the way we intend. In evaluation, checking the audience and choosing the graphic is important.
Checking the audience
We need to consider our audience’s background whenever we choose a visual aid. For example information presented in a table is preferred by readers with a strong technical background whereas less technical readers found a flow chart better for the same information. Graphics literacy is not taught widely in our education system, so for most audiences, the simpler and more pictorial device is better. Many professions such as engineering, economics and architecture do have their own graphic languages and conventions, which can be used where appropriate. If there is more information available then the selection and processing of information is essential. Where the information is numerical, we need to use a form which matches the purpose and the needs of the audience. We can decide the content of the message using content criteria like accuracy, brevity, clarity, emphasis etc.
Choosing the graphic
Once the audience analysis has been done, we should have a reasonably clear idea of the most suitable visual aid. There are several options available in graphics. Use the most relevant ones, and only when they are necessary. Avoid overcrowding a page. Make sure they fit within the normal margins of our page and leave ample white space between the text and the graphics. Use graphics that are appropriate to our uses or their technical knowledge.
Graphics should never be for decoration. Instead, they should have a clear purpose and help the reader to understand something in our document that would be difficult to show with text alone. For that reason, we’ll need to take some extra steps to help your audience use the graphic effectively.
Different graphics have different functions, so we should choose one that meets our needs.
When selecting a chart, graph or table, we’ll want to pick the one that fits the relationship we’re trying to show. For example, if we wanted to show how something changed over time, we’d use a line graph. If we wanted to compare different numbers, we’ll use a bar graph. If we wanted to show the percentages of a whole, we’d use a pie chart.
We should consider some factors while choosing the graphic.
Type (e.g. horizontal or vertical bar charts)
Scale ( this can affect the emphasis)
Complexity ( there is a trade-off between detail, and accuracy and clarity)
Use of color (certain colors are conventionally associated with certain attitudes and emotions but beware of any cultural differences that may affect our audience)
we should also check whether the size of the graphic may be reduced to fit column or page sizes. If so, make sure our graphic can be reduced without loss of clarity.
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