With your partner or group, analyze your assigned document by answering the following questions. Post your responses to this blog post as a comment that includes the names of everyone in your group.
1. What is your document?
2. What is the purpose of this document? What evidence did you use to discern the purpose?
3. Who is the audience of this document? What evidence did you use to discern the audience?
4. How well does your document meet the five goals of document design? Provide evidence for your answer. (p. 250)
5. How well does your document follow the principles of Contrast, Repetition, Alignment, and Proximity? (p. 251-254)
6. How effective is the overall layout and use of white (blank) space?
7. How effective is the typography (typeface, line length, line spacing, justification, etc.)
8. What design elements help the audience navigate and/or skim the document?
9. What are two things you would change on the document to improve the design and/or usability of the document?
Post your comment to the blog. Keep your document so you can return it to me during our next class period.
Wednesday, February 24, 2016
8 comments:
If you are submitting an assignment, be sure your sharing permissions are set correctly and that you create a link by following the directions at this site: How To Leave a Link in a Blogger Comment
Copy the line of code there, replace the web address with a link to your document (but leave the quotation marks in place), and replace the word Home with your name and the name of the assignment (example: JoySanteeProveIt1).
After you submit your comment, be sure the link works. If it doesn't, edit it for correctness.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
1. Protect Your Rights to Farm- Pesticide Drift Response Guide for Iowa’s Farmers and Rural Residents
ReplyDelete2. Purpose is to inform audience of pesticide drift. The evidence is in the first fold of the booklet. Readers first see the definition an identifying exposure.
3. The audience is Iowa farmers and rural citizens.
4. Makes a good impression- the pictures used in the booklet are relevant to audience’s interest. Helps understand hierarchy and structure- the info is well organized with big text headers, numbers, and bullet points. Helps readers find the information they need- provided contacts, divides information by page and utilizes color. Helps readers remember information- The pictures represent information. Ex. Pesticides are prayed with planes. The author provided a picture of a crop dust plane.
5. All of the information is aligned, the spacing is even, the author uses contrast with colors, and there is repetition with encouraging famers to be proactive.
6. The organization of the booklet overall puts important information towards the front. There is a lot of blank space where the reader can report and incident.
7. The text in the line is cut off. Words that do not fit on the first line are hyphened into the second line. This is straining to the readers eye.
8. Bolded/ large text headers allow the reader to identify topics quickly. Numbering points also helps reader recognize facts.
9. Fix the hyphened letters! One title “Advice to Farmers” is in a different color. The no spray logo is printed in the page. If the picture were a peel off sticker, the reader can spread the message quicker.
1. Protect Your Rights to Farm- Pesticide Drift Response Guide for Iowa’s Farmers and Rural Residents
ReplyDelete2. Purpose is to inform audience of pesticide drift. The evidence is in the first fold of the booklet. Readers first see the definition an identifying exposure.
3. The audience is Iowa farmers and rural citizens.
4. Makes a good impression- the pictures used in the booklet are relevant to audience’s interest. Helps understand hierarchy and structure- the info is well organized with big text headers, numbers, and bullet points. Helps readers find the information they need- provided contacts, divides information by page and utilizes color. Helps readers remember information- The pictures represent information. Ex. Pesticides are prayed with planes. The author provided a picture of a crop dust plane.
5. All of the information is aligned, the spacing is even, the author uses contrast with colors, and there is repetition with encouraging famers to be proactive.
6. The organization of the booklet overall puts important information towards the front. There is a lot of blank space where the reader can report and incident.
7. The text in the line is cut off. Words that do not fit on the first line are hyphened into the second line. This is straining to the readers eye.
8. Bolded/ large text headers allow the reader to identify topics quickly. Numbering points also helps reader recognize facts.
9. Fix the hyphened letters! One title “Advice to Farmers” is in a different color. The no spray logo is printed in the page. If the picture were a peel off sticker, the reader can spread the message quicker.
Alexis Lee
ReplyDeleteBrooke Cronin
Zino Efenedo
1.A booklet about St. Louis to make it look better or for tourism.
2.Its an expenditure of St. Louis because it gives statistics about the area.
3.The booklet is for taxpayers and people who are willing to donate money for St. Louis projects.
4.Misleading on the front because it makes the booklet look like a tourism document when it's not. The structure inside is good however for the purpose that it serves. If you know what your looking it, the document is easy to understand but It's a little hard to find what you need. It's not really memorable either because it's kind of boring and too wordy.
5.The document has some repetition with the statistics and also the proximity between the pictures and information is off. They put random pictures of people doing activities when it doesn't go with the purpose of the booklet.
6.The use of formatting and colors on the wording is effective for the document. A couple pages were a little crowded but overall the design was effective.
7.It needs to change up the font a bit and some pages don’t have a heading to catch attention to the reader.
8.The document is kind of random so it's hard to really skim through the pages without reading a great deal about the booklet. Also, there is no index to help with navigation.
9.The pictures need to be changed to go with the booklet more like putting the St. Louis arch on the front. Another thing to change is the navigation of the document by giving more headings and make wording straightforward.
Grace McDowell, Sarah Goetze, Natalie Correll
ReplyDelete1. McKendree University Strategic Plan 2013-2018
2. The purpose of this document is to inform board members, students, and other audiences affiliated with McKendree about McKendree’s strategic plan to build upon their promise, values, and many strengths.
3. The primary audience includes board members, alumni, faculty, and donors. The language of the document is very persuasive and almost used as marketing. The document is made for long term use, so the content containing the long term plan for McKendree would appeal to this audience.
4. To make a good impression on others, this document appears very professional, contains pictures of students and faculty, and uses contrasting colors. To understand the structure of the document, the inside cover breaks the information into six circles by color. Each section is described further using the coded colors. Before each personal story, there is an enlarged quote that gives an overview/summary of the person the story is about. To help readers find the information they need the inside cover breaks the information in the document into six circles by color. Each section is described further using the coded colors. Also, there are tabs on the cover and most pages that highlights what section you are reading and what others are contained. To help readers understand the information, it is broken down into boxes, and the solid colored pages summarize the purpose of that section. The letter from the President gives an overview of the entire document. To help readers remember the information, the document uses quotes, boxes, and coded colors.
5. Most text colors contrast nicely with their background. In a few instances, the text is too light to contrast from the background. The design use of quotes and informational boxes are repeated in every section of the document. Coded colors provide repetition, as well. The page margins are aligned consistently, but could be reduced to use more text space. The proximity of the quotes are located on the picture of the person who said them. The headings and subheading are located in close proximity to the body of the text.
6. This document contains too much white space. Because of this, the text appears very small. If less white space were used, text could have been enlarged. The overall layout is very wordy and contains an overload of information on some pages. The orange in the color scheme is very bright compared to the other colors used in the document.
7. The typography used is appropriate and professional. In some instances, the box containing information is much larger than the text inside. Important quotes and headings are enlarged and bolded from other parts of the text.
8. The tabs contained on the cover and inside pages of the document help the audience navigate it easily. It does not contain a table of documents. Bolded topic sentences help the audience skim through the information quickly.
9. First we would enlarge the text sixe so it could be read easily by all audiences. We would also reduce the margins. This would enable the text size to be larger and reduce white space.
Colten Shimer & Brianne Hilmes
ReplyDelete1).Our document is a brochure made by the department of health.
2). It talks about eating fish, how much you should consume per body weight, eating fish while pregnant, and at a young. How to properly prepare the fish before you cook it. It also tells the people reading the brochure on what kind of fish not to eat and what is located in Minnesota. We used the graphics, charts, and heading to know what the brochure was about.
3).The audience of the brochure is people that live in Minnesota that like to eat fish, teaching them what they need to know about fish. Residents of Minnesota who was into the sport of fishing and who included fish in their diet.
4).They did a good job on professional standards in making the brochure since it is from the department of health. The readers knew where to go next after reading because of the folded pages. The brochure made it is for readers to find the information they need because of the bolded headings on each section. To help readers understand the information they use graphics to explain for example where to clean a fish and how to. They use the graphics and charts to help readers remember the information.
5).The proximity of the brochure is very well designed with nothing clumped together. The alignment of the brochure is consciously lined up by an imaginary line. Every section is designed the same way by bolded headers with the information under the header. It has good repetition. The contrast of the paper is well with a light blue back ground and then the wording is a dark blue. It is easy to read.
6). The overall layout is very well designed, with every section having a heading and information to follow after. There is no empty spaces. The brochure is easy to follow to the reader, including charts and pictures.
7). The typography is very well designed. There is a perfect amount of line spacing in between every section and the wording, not making it run together.
8). The bold headings and the folded pages, charts and graphics, and lastly Q and A sections.
9).There is really nothing else I would change on the document. For being a person that likes fish and eat fish, it is very well designed. I don’t think it leaves out any information.
Spencer, CJ, Marla
ReplyDelete1. IMSA Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy
2. The purpose of this document is to inform readers of the IMSA and how it stands out from other schools. We discerned this by the main headings on each page of the booklet and the large pictures underneath them.
3. Parents and students are the main audience in the booklet.
4. The pictures and headings are there to impress the person on how innovative the school is. The document keeps important aspects, like learning, in the front of the booklet, while in the back it talks more about individual’s experiences with the academy. Headings help readers easily navigate through the document to find the information they need. The booklet gives a separate document that gives the reader a step by step guide on how to apply online. The booklet is very organized, with larger fonts to remember the information.
5. The booklet does a great job to keep items of different nature on separate pages so they do not seem related to each other. All of the bullet points in the document are aligned and every box with different information is spaced out well. Heading and boxes are consistent sizes throughout the document with an occasional footnote in the corner. Colored boxes with appropriately colored fonts contrast the document into separate subjects which is aesthetically pleasing.
6. There is not a lot of blank white space. The document is filled with colors and pictures instead.
7. Something interesting that the booklet did symbolically was that each footnote had a picture of shoes next to it. Each line length isn’t too strung out and the fonts fit well for each piece of information. Line spacing is normal for most documents, double spaced with line breaks for each subject. The document is left-justified.
8. The headings are descriptive enough to allow the reader to look over the section quickly.
9. Some of the pictures are unnecessarily large. If the size of the pictures were smaller, the document wouldn’t have to be so long.
Thomas Finnin, Ben Bauer, Alex Taaka
ReplyDelete1) Our group had the American Discovery Trail Society letter.
2) ADT is trying to raise money to support their coast-to-coast multi-use hiking trail. We looked at the highlighted text and the graphics from the document.
3) The audience of this document would be hikers or individuals already interested in outdoor activities. Literally addressed to “Outdoor Enthusiasts” and makes appeals to all the interesting nature spots that one will see.
4) If we were seriously considering this organization, we think it would appeal to our already existing interests. It includes nice graphics and at the end it sums up the benefits in a table. As for understanding hierarchy of information, there is just so much information that it all ends up being lost in the shuffle. Even the bolding that they do doesn’t help much at all. The document is not skimmable overall but without headings it is hard to find any information quickly. Readers would be more likely to remember the quotes pulled out and the pictures on the side than most of the main information since none of it is really highlighted effectively. Overall, the document is mediocre.
5) This document does not really stand up to the book’s definition of contrast that we looked at. Nothing is really distinct enough to take note of despite the graphics being fairly helpful. In terms of repetition, all the information is laid out like a letter so there is no really alternating of text size at all. All the text is lined up since it is in letter format but one graphic is out of place with the rest which really stands out. For proximity, since there is so much information, they at least tie the graphic to a quote or a piece of text to make it stand with some first-hand testimony.
6) The layout may be appealing to an older crowd, but for people our age, the lack of bullets points or headings to organize information internally makes it really unappealing. White space is as expected from a letter-style document.
7) Most of the typography are is fine overall but we noted two things. Sometimes text was pushed up against a graphic which looked really bad. We also noted that having bold text in the middle of a paragraph was distracting at times.
8) Very little actually helps people get through this document quickly. Only the periodic bold text highlights things readers should actually try to read. The document is in decently small paragraphs but they are mostly indistinguishable from each other so none stand out.
9) Headings would be really helpful to make this information broken up into distinct sections. To appeal to a younger crowd, cutting some of the length would better highlight what really matters from the document.
Payton Harris and Macci Rueter
ReplyDelete1. “Prairie Strips On My Land: Frequently Asked Questions”
2. The purpose is to explain what prairie strips are and the benefits of having a 90%-10% ratio of crops to prairie strips respectively. The evidence is that the first page of the document gives the definition of prairie strips and the rest of the document holds pictures and examples of why prairie strips would be acceptable to use.
3. The audience is farmers or people who have land, specifically in Iowa. The evidence is that farmers/land owners with crops want to have the best soil and this document appeals to farmers in this way.
4. Principle 1: The document is a good example of “a good impression to the readers,” because it seems to be well organized and broken down for easy reading. There are high quality pictures and a nice color scheme.
Principle 2: The pamphlet has a good structure of hierarchy of information. The pamphlet is structure from most important (Why prairie strips?) and continues on until the final page of contact information.
Principle 3: The document gives ample information. The final page is full of important information needed to start using prairie strips. Also, each page has a heading that contrasts with white font on a dark green heading box. The headings are important questions that farmers would have when considering prairie stripping their land.
Principle 4: It does help readers understand the information. The document has headings, pictures, and charts to prioritize information.
Principle 5: The document gives the reader a chance to learn more, which will help them continue thinking of the information in the pamphlet.
5. Proximity: Each facing page set has a picture to describe the charted information. Therefore, the reader knows that the items are connected.
Alignment: The information uses a flow chart effect to align the information in a vertical axis.
Repetition: The document is repetitive in the style of the information given and themes. It uses the same colors throughout and the same flow chart design with a descriptive picture.
Contrast: The headings have a white font on a dark green background that contrast nicely. As the colors change in the flow char boxes the font does too (the black font on the yellow boxes for better contrast). The header has a bigger font so it contrasts more with the smaller text boxes.
6. The document effectively uses the page size. There is little white space other than the margins of the pages. The size of the flow charts and pictures filled up the pages appropriately.
7. The font is clear and easy to read. The line length works with the boxes the text is put in. The spacing is normal and easy to read. The justification of the information is centered in the boxes and the information as a whole is centered on the page.
8. The headers help the reader to skim because they can look for what they specifically want to know. They can also reference the pictures provided and the pictures’ descriptions.
9. The front page is unappealing. The faded design isn’t the best route to take. None of the information boxes have periods, which is a little odd.