What do documents do?

• Provide instructions (ex: recipes)
• Transfer information (ex: warning labels)
• Record transactions (ex: receipts)
• Serve as value proxies (ex: cash)
• Establish entities (ex: US Constitution)
• Regulate actions (ex: laws, contracts, UNCW honor code)

"It's no exaggeration to say that documents are the foundation of organized society, a practical mechanism for mediating human action within and among communities, nations, and cultures" (Kimball and Hawkins 1).

What are the elements of good document design?

• Aesthetic appeal
• Audience awareness
• meets client needs
• meets user needs
• accounts for other potential audiences
• potential users
• potential clients
• competitors
• students
• lawyers
• judges
• journalists
• etc.
• Conditions of use awareness
• physical situation (ex: under a car, sitting at a computer, standing in line at the bank)
• cultural situation (ex: global location, historical moment, economic and political factors)
• Comprehensibility
• Lack of errors
• Efficiency

All of these are contestable, not inherent, and they may shift depending on situation and goals.

Issues related to whole documents

• Media are "the means by which a document is conveyed to readers" (75). Two common document media are print and screen.
• Formats are "all of the possible physical arrangements of documents within the medium" (83). So, within the print medium, there are many common formats (or genres) including brochures, books, posters, flyers, signs, etc.
• Three ways to view pages:
• Skim: looking for anything that will catch the eye
• Scan: seeking particular information
• Read: closely examining text