What stuck out the most to me in this weeks reading was part of the article "Whitespace" from A List Apart (sited in Instructor Blog #5: Design). In the middle of the article it shows how the use of whitespace made a face mask product go from looking cheap to luxurious. I was struck by how effective it was to make the ad look less cheap by just changing the font and amount of space on the photo without altering the photo itself or any of the words in the ad. This spoke volumes to me about how important it is that we keep in mind our own culture and how we perceive visual images. It is as though the information is secondary to the initial gut reaction to layout of the document, because the layout could easily lose the reader before they even start reading. As the study stated in Instructor Blog #5: Design, “…viewers make judgments about website design in about one 20th of a second.”
Another idea that stuck out a lot to me was “good design guides the eye,” as stated in “Instructor Blog #5: Design.” This is a very obvious idea but I thought of all the simple ways that it is applied. For instance, in the same article I went back through and by simply bolding the main ideas in the blog it does a very good job of guiding the eye to certain main topics. This is great if you need to go back and read specific information in an article and it gives it a sort of separation of sections as well. As we learned last week, this separation of sections is very important and should be applied to most instructions.
On a side note I noticed in "Instructor Blog #5: Design" that in the bear attack instructions it says to slowly back away. It then goes on to say that at other points you should stand your ground and DO NOT slowly back away. This looks to me like a situation where more description is needed in the instructions so as not to confuse the reader. It does a good job with format but if the instructions change from one thing to the opposite then the reader needs to know why.
Telling the reader why
I think you made a great point in your last paragraph about telling the reader why the instructions have changed. I think it's important in general to try to give your readers an understanding of why they're doing what you're instructing them to do (if you can do so succinctly) because it helps teach them the process instead of having them simply follow step by step instructions that they'll need every time, particularly if the process is a long one. Telling them why they're doing certain steps will help readers start to make sense of the logic behind a process, which will help people remember it instead of needing to memorize a list of instructions that might seem unconnected or random.
Kristin
Contradiction in bear encounter instructions
I would agree with this, and indeed the instructor blog points out that there is a contradiction in the instructions that should be groomed out. If you compare the revised version with the original, it seems that the revised version doesn't take into account the sequential nature of the instructions, as you imply.
The use of whitespace is a
The use of whitespace is a difficult thing for me to wrap my mind around. I’m not sure if it is just our culture as you have stated, in that we always want more and more or what, but I always try to be as detailed as possible and at times it seems this probably eats up the much needed whitespace in my documents. The guiding of someone’s eye, like you talked about, does seem very important to keep in mind when forming our documents. I know that I am personally going to trial and error my document with a couple of test readers to get their input and hopefully improve my documents.
Thanks
JFlitt.
www.JFlitt.com
Credibility and Layout
In the last paragraph with the bear contradictions, not only do the instructions “say back away slowly”, but further down it tells the reader to climb a tree. Bears are excellent climbers; they have been climbing since they were cubs. To help benefit from this I feel that I need to make sure that I am publishing the correct information on my instructions.
Aside from the mistakes in information, the overall design looks good. The author outlines important steps that by bolding the text. The photograph ties into the subject and I know that the instructions are pertaining to an upset bear.
Zebulon Rouse
The threat down
In a previous comment I was talking about how good design usually coincides with good planning and by extension good content. I think the bear instructions illustrate the other side of that, with bad content and bad design.
The initial design was horrendous. It really just looked thrown together. The revision was a major improvement, but still after reading some of the comments by people who apparently know a thing or two about bears, the content seems thrown-together, too. I've heard you aren't supposed to climb trees, and I also watched a special on bears just last week that suggested yelling at a curious bear. This added to the contradiction about backing away makes me extremely wary of the writer's bear knowledge.
This is a good example of quality carrying through between design and content. However, I don't know how this applies to our project, other than demonstrating that you should give due diligence to both design and content, since users will trust you to know what you are talking about. That, and don't write instructions that could get someone killed by a bear.
"good design guides the eye"
I too enjoyed the idea of "good design guides the eye". This idea really shows how you need to use design to guide the reader’s eye to the right content. We must remember that design is not only concerned with graphics but also the content of the text. We must use an effective design to connect different aspects of our documents. Such as guiding the readers eye from the text to a mentioned figure. Make sure to adequately label your figures. Without adequate labels the figures and or tables are quite useless if the reader can’t find what their looking for.