Design Plan Tips

  • Structure your design plan by laying out the goals of your multimedia text by discussing your audience, context, and purpose (statement of purpose). Then turn to how your choices of medium, arrangement, and strategies accomplish the goals you have established. Then deal with the text's testing process (if possible—this is not always necessary). Look at pages 52-54 of Compose, Design, Advocate excerpt 2 for information and examples.
  • Don't use "I" at all if possible. Don't talk about your process producing the text; talk about what the text does and how it works.
  • Remember that for the final draft of your design plan, your multimedia text should be in a finished state, so your design plan should speak in the present tense. There should not be statements in your final design plan about what you will or might do. At this point, your multimedia text is a finished product. You should only talk about what it does and how it works.
  • The key is not making the most interesting map you can think of—the key is identifying and solving a problem. If you can't articulate a clear need that you are addressing, then what's the point of doing your work?
  • "To inform people about X" is almost always a weak purpose. Ask yourself why. What's the reason for informing this audience?
  • "People who are interested in X" is almost always a weak audience. It doesn't give us anything productive to use when shaping our text. What traits about your target audience are relevant?
  • Delivery, which is an issue of medium, is vital. How would your audience come in contact with your work? If you just put your map on your website, will your audience ever have a chance to see it?
  • You must connect production issues (strategies, medium, arrangement) with your statement of purpose (sense of purpose, audience, context). There's not much point in stating that your text uses particular colors or that it is arranged in a certain way unless you demonstrate why this is important. Explain how your production choices help the map accomplish its goals.