ENG 204-002

I found many things interesting about design that helped me understand what design is. I found Technical Communication Today’s five principles of design to be helpful. Balance, alignment, grouping, consistency, contrast, are important when designing something that will be useful and appealing to people.

I also found it wild that our brains subconsciously judge a website in a 20th of a second. I immediately thought of Facebook and its ever-changing design. If people are already pleased with something, why would someone in charge of design change it? It seems that more people are frustrated than happy when Facebook design changes. Why are Facebook design people not taking notice to this frustration? Just like Tropicanna found out, customers get used to a certain look or design, and if there is nothing wrong with it, why change it?

The third quality of design, good design guides the eye, made me think about the placement of links on websites that I found helpful, and ones I thought could use some work. The campus dining website for UNC Wilmington is a mess. The link to look at the actual menus is on the top right corner and almost blends in with the regular things that are not links. A website should “help direct readers' line of vision to follow the relevant tasks in the relevant order,” which the wag website does not seem to do.

Many things go into design that can be easily overlooked such as consistency. Just like when talking about lighting in photos, everything should be consistent. It is unappealing and frustrating to me when a website has no consistency, or does not use the same style for something. It is distracting to readers, not helpful.

Overall, the readings were very helpful, the TCT chapters on design helped me understand how to execute the art of design and the blog helped me understand more of what people like and dislike.

First of all, I thought the advice mentioned in the Instructor Blog: Design was very helpful. I didn't initially consider the importance of lighting in pictures or maintaining the same dimensions for pictures. I just thought if the pictures and layouts were neatly organized in our project, it would look fine. However, now I realize how precise we need to be in order to make our design professional and cohesive.

The five principles of design: balance, alignment, grouping, consistency, and contrast, are some basic but important tips in creating a document with an excellent design. They're straightforward and easy to understand but still helpful in that they give you some good ideas for formatting your layout.

I think shading and contrast are important because the creator of the document should be aware of their audience and their ability to successfully read their document with ease. For example, the Rubik's Cube instruction set you showed us was awful. It was impossible to read and it was just an eyesore. I don't know if the creator was really fond of Christmas, or just enjoyed the combination of neon green and red together, but if I wanted to know how to solve a Rubik's Cube, I would take one look at that webpage and immediately seek instructions elsewhere.

Another helpful piece of advice regarding the graphics was "A graphic should reinforce the written text, not replace it." It seems that it might be easy to find a lot of pretty or nice-looking pictures to slap onto your document to make the entire layout seem more appealing, and could be potentially pretty easy to allow your graphics to overshadow your text without thinking much of it.

In Chapter 11, there is a section regarding screen shots. Though I already know how to capture a screen shot on my Mac, they explain how to on both a Mac and a PC. I thought that was really great advice for those users who weren't sure how to do so or even that it was an option. If I choose to stick with my topic for my analysis, which was "How to Burn an Audio CD," I think capturing my own screen shots will help make it more original, versus using images from another existing set of instructions.

A lot of this material will become useful during this project as the readings brought up many aspects of designing documents and creating and using graphics that I was unfamiliar with. The emphasis that chapter 10 puts on balancing a page layout and paying particular attention to weighing out your graphics and words in a particular matter is something that you don't necessarily heavily consider when designing a page. Using grids to layout a page and organize your thoughts/visuals is a helpful tip that I would like to keep in mind when figuring out how to best layout my design plan.

I appreciated how they touched on making your website/document accessible, especially for those who have disabilities. It is important to consider the fact that everyone viewing your work may not be as capable as you are. Therefore it is thoughtful to consider using side notes, large buttons, large links, good contrast, etc. I have stumbled upon many a confusing website that has small font or unclear links and are not easily navigable and it just makes you not want to stay on the website and figure it out. Grouping is another good technique to make sure that you layout your document in an easily navigable way as the book encourages you to group similar topics in large blocks because the human eye can quickly pick up and follow the information. One important part of chapter 10 is the section about creating cross-culturally designed documents as people of all cultures are beginning to interact more frequently and use the same websites. It's important to consider these aspects when creating a document.

Chapter 11 discussing graphics was extremely helpful in advising when to use and how to construct them. I do not have very much experience with creating graphics and incorporating them into projects. It is important to remember that a graphic should be ethical in that it should display the information in an accurate manor and not attempt to confuse or mislead the reader. The sections discussing how and when to use video and audio I was a bit more familiar with as we have already had to do a project including video. It is important to consider the production of your audio/video because you can come across as less credible if it is poorly made, but visual aids aside from written text are an important part of re-iterating your point and helping the reader understand.

I found the Five Principles of Design from Chapter 10 to be very helpful in understanding how to create an effective set of instructions. These principles aren’t something I would have strongly thought about incorporating into my instructions had I not been reminded of how essential they are. The example Dr. Tirrell gave about what to do when in the presence of a bear gave a better understanding of layout design. Before I even began to read the bear instructions, I felt overwhelmed. The instructions seemed cluttered and unprofessional. After reading them, I felt like I needed to read a different set of instructions because of it seemed so unprofessional. Who knew that making a few minor changes could make such a big difference?

I absolutely agree with the Instructor’s Blog’s reference to white space. I get frustrated when I see a document full of text and photos. It seems cluttered and it turns me away from reading the instructions. The white space is very eye-friendly and like Dr. Tirrell says, white space “is breathing room for the eye.” One point that both Chapter 10 and the Instructor’s blog pointed out that I never really considered was the consistency of a document. I understand why it would be important as far as the text goes, but I never gave any thought to how the size and shape of a picture could disturb the thought process. I never seemed to have a problem with the different shape and size of pictures in an instructions set, but I’ve always been quick to picking out the color contrast of photos. The Instructor’s blog suggests that pictures should either be all color, or all in gray scale. Dr. Tirrell makes a good point here by explaining how having both color and non-color images could be a downfall of instructions. When I go from looking at a color picture to a non-color picture, or vice versa, my eyes have to re-adjust and it’s an uncomfortable feeling.

Chapter 11 also discussed the importance of graphics. It pointed out how new technology allows us to use certain graphic features to make our instructions look more professional. However, I didn’t think it was necessary to suggest avoiding the use of camera phone pictures-to me this seemed like common sense. The quality of camera phone pictures are not exactly worthy of being included in documents. They become blurry and very hard to read. When I think of instructions I usually just think of document and paper-based formats. I don’t really consider how effective audio and video elements can help enhance the effectiveness of the instructions. I thought it was helpful that they addressed this idea. All in all, learning about the five principles will be very helpful in my creation of effective instructions.

It only takes twenty seconds for an audiences to take in a design plan and decide whether it is appealing or not. Humans are enately drawn to the visibly appealing. Whether it is picking a significant other, house, apparel, or which Magazine to buy there is no escaping the fact that there are some things involving beauty and structure that we like to see in an item.

The article "Instructor Blog: Design" mentions this almost instant judgment that takes place and goes on to tell the reader how to accomplish a well put together design. I found statements such as using formalitirs and straight and same-sized photos and blocks of information to be very true! If there are a lot of inconsistancies on a page it becomes cluttered looking and difficult to read.

Also, parallelism is important in instruction sets yet again highlighting the importance of consistency.

The chapters help to make well aware how and why writters of instructions must edit edit edit in order for their works to be to the up most useability!

Arrangement is also mentioned as a big factor in how an item or practice is viewed based on how eay the order of steps to gaining access to the proper function.

A personal example backing this is my sister. She will go through every purse in a store looking for defects until she finds the one purse of the highest quality!

Therefore we as writers should take this information seriously and do the best we can to make information visually appealing so it captures the attention of readers and therefor can instruct properly the function of an item.

Several things in the chapter 10 really stuck out to me. One thing was the 5 principles Balance being the biggest thing. Balance sticks out to me because several magazines and in several documents that I have it Is just in balanced and even though I don’t know what is when I’m reading it, but you can just tell that something is structurally off. Also in the 5 principles one that struck me, was Contrast, which is that items in the document that are different look different. That is so true I can’t tell you how many times images on the page do not correlate with the words on the page. It just bothers me and also the shading and background color throw the page off.
Also in Chapter 10, they talked about being culturally deep. All they said in the book about this was that you might need to talk about to someone who has some cultural in them. I find this kind of offensive. I feel that you don’t need to advertise or draw attention to a certain race, you can advertise In one way. You don’t need to cater to a certain audience.
One thing in chapter 11 that stuck out to me was the fact that it said, “A graphic should tell a simple story” A graphic should tell a story in the simple concise way. I Fully agree because a lot of graphics like bar graphs and line graphs have so much going on in them that you cant even figure out what is reall happening, and I hate those papers because you can never distinguish what the bar graph is and its just a huge mess. Also a graph should be labeled properly so people don’t get confused.

I liked how Chapter 10 laid out the five principles of design. Balance, alignment, grouping, consistency, and contrast will all be things that I keep in mind while working on this project. I thought the bear attack instructions in the Instructor’s Blog really emphasized the importance of all five of these principles. The original directions are just plain visually unappealing and lack consistency. By breaking the instructions up in to bullet points and making warnings in all caps they became a much more effective set of directions. The bear example also reminded me of the directions I used for the rhetorical analysis. They too were lacking some of the five basic features and could have been easily improved with just a few minor tweaks.

I also liked how the Instructor’s Blog discussed the importance of white space in directions. There is nothing more overwhelming than opening up a webpage or document and having all the text cramped together. Subconsciously or not, white spaces shape how a reader feels about your document and give the reader a chance to rest their eyes.

Chapter 11 and the Instructor’s Blog pointed out how important it is to use good quality graphics. The lighting for each graphic is important, as well as size, shape, and color. All of these characteristics should be consistent throughout. I guess I’d never really put much thought into it, but it does bother me when something I’m reading doesn’t have pictures that are the same size or orientation throughout the entirety of the document.

The book and blog also mentions incorporating screenshots into your work. I’ve seen them used fairly frequently, particularly when I’ve looked up directions regarding my Macbook on Apple’s website, but I never really had any experience using them myself. I’m glad they told you how to do them on PCs and Macs.

I found Instructor Blog: Design and Chapter 10 & 11 of Technical Communication Today to be interesting because I never really knew how much effort goes into creating an effective design plan and how tedious of a job it can be.

Instructor Blog: Design was incredibly helpful in explaining the effectiveness of a good design. The second instructions in the design example were noticeably easier to read; however, all that seemingly was added was a few bullets and punctuation. But in all actuality, balance, alignment, grouping, consistency, and contrast was added. I never knew that the effectiveness of a good design plan relied on so many things. Grouping, for example, has several components including white space use, headings, the levels of headings, and borders and rules.

What I found even more interesting was that the effectiveness of a design plan has a one-twentieth of a second timeframe to persuade a reader. The design plan affects the reader almost subconsciously, as “good design is invisible.”

Technical Communication Today also provided me with advice in creating successful design. I am glad that the use of white space, a part of grouping, was mentioned because several shorter paragraphs always seem quicker to read than a couple long paragraphs. I wish that more of my professors would utilize white spaces when writing their syllabi. Sentences of different topics separated by bold headers will always beat one long paragraph any day.

Chapter 11 of TCT discusses how to actually take the pictures used. I never realized that there were so many components including clutter, lighting, and focus that went into creating a picture to go into the design. Thanks to Chapters 10 & 11 of Technical Communication Today and Instructor Blog: Design, I now know how to point out the aspects of an effective design plan and also execute them in my instructions.

The chapters, as well as the reading, were very helpful and made a lot of sense. I do not think that I would have thought much about the design of my instruction set. There very a bunch of good points that were brought to my attention regarding the design. For example, the reading was talking about how the information in the instructions on what to do if you encounter a bear was too wordy. I did not even think about the audience when reading the example at first. Then when the audience was described as someone who was reading the instructions while actually encountering a bear, I understood why there were so many flaws in the instructions. It is common sense to write specifically to the audience so that you, as the writer, are able to help the audience while being in that position and needing a quick guided reaction!

Also the use of unnecessary imagery did not occur to me when thinking about design. I have never paid much attention to details when using instruction sets but I can understand why you would want to leave some things out. It is very important to keep your audience focused and unnecessary details and imagery may distract the audience. I have also never noticed the way most instructions use the principles of design that were described in chapter 10 of TCT which were balance, alignment, grouping, consistency and contrast. Understanding what each one of these did for the design really helped me understand how an instructions set is supposed to look and how arranging one can impact the audience. For the project, the information that was discussed in the readings will become very helpful seeing as though we will have to design our own instruction set. It was good to see what types of things we will need to include and then to see an example of a set of instructions that, although looked decent, lacked some very important aspects.

In Chapter 10 of TCT, it pointed out some key points when designing a document that I don’t necessarily think about but are actually rather obvious ones. A good document contains five basic design principles: balance, alignment, grouping, consistency, and contrast. When I’m reading an article online, it is usually very noticeable which web pages are professional sources that I could quote for a research paper based upon how they design their information. If the page has too many bright colors that make the text hard to read, it’s difficult to find an image that matches the information about it, or if it’s really obvious the creator went overboard in trying out every type of font/alignment available, then I usually don’t stick around for long. A document that uses design effectively will have a balanced page layout, its alignment clearly distinguishes the important information, pictures will be next to or near the text that refers to them, bright colors will not make the words hard to read, and above all, it will be consistent.

Chapter 11 of TCT goes into better detail about the use of graphics within a document, whether it’s a graph or an image. Either way, the chosen graphics should meet all the guidelines before being put into the document. They should: tell a simple story, reinforce the written text (not replace it), ethical (i.e. should not distort or hide information), and placed properly with a label. Furthermore, it’s important to remember when taking photographs to be conscious of the lighting, backdrop, and balance within the image. For example, when I was in high school I was part of the yearbook staff and we were given several lessons on how to take a picture properly so that the people in the image are not off to one side (thus allowing another image in the backdrop to dominate the picture) nor are they in a dark light.

The blog reinforced all of these details and centered them primarily on the fact that a reader has very little time, mere fractions of a second, to decide whether they want to continue reading that document. It’s important to remember that although a good design is invisible (i.e. not always noticed by the reader); it will still be able to draw them into whatever you are trying to say. In the end though, paying careful attention to the design and being able to revise it after viewing it from the reader’s point of view, makes for a great document.

Personally, while keeping the project in mind I found all three of the the assigned readings helpful. The Instructor Blog was helpful in putting this part of the project (the emphasis on design and appearance) into perspective. Showing the Tropicana and Pepsi mistakes sheds light on how, for even well established companies, a change of design can be detrimental and seriously effect their demographic. In both cases the product hadn't changed in the slightest, just its packaging, and people reacted negatively until at least in Pepsi's case it was forced to revert to the original design.
Chapter 10's outline and explanation of the "5 Principles of Design". First of all it is a tangible outline of things to think about while constructing the project, but for me it more illuminated the detail required in making such a project. When designing something like simple instructions I wouldn't really think that so much thought and analysis would be required-I would just do what looked good to me. Now, it appears that may not be as effective as I would hope. Simple factors like font and alignment may make the difference between an effective set of instructions and a set that appears sloppy and can't be used. Finally, in the 11th chapter I was particularly intrigued at the detailed instructions and warnings that go with symbols and colors. The international aspect of the use of both of these is what catches my interest the most. International communication is important, but the huge variety of differences in culture, religion, and language, make that communication-just like many kinds of communication- very intricate.

One of the elements I found most interesting among those discussed in the Instructor Blog: Design is the practical impact of design. I had always thought its mere purpose was to appeal to customers/audiences/end-users. I had never considered it aimed at easing access to the product.
The Tropicana juice package’s redesign failure is an excellent illustration of the usefulness of having a good design. In this case, the new design delayed or even blocked the purchase, resulting in plummeting sales. The impact was negative, immediate, visible, and potentially long-lasting.
Another relevant example is the online set of instructions to solve a Rubik’s cube shown in class. Clearly, the webpage design does not follow the five principles described in Chapter 10: Designing documents and interfaces. The layout is unbalanced, with a unique paragraph occupying the first quarter of the page. The text is centered, with a single indent at the beginning. All the information is grouped together in one paragraph. No important piece of information is carved out. There is no access point with only the title of the webpage that sticks out by its size. Due to numerous design mistakes, these online instructions are unintelligible, making it hard for readers to benefit from it.

Another element that caught my attention was the importance of choosing the appropriate typeface to convey a given message. Although I knew that some typefaces seemed more professional than others, I had never considered why. As I had never paid attention to the tips at the ends of letters, I was not suspecting they constituted what made a typeface be perceived more formal or traditional than another one.

Finally, I found helpful the information on how to efficiently use white space – be it active or passive. Although I think we often do it unconsciously, it should prove to be useful later on as its appropriate use enables better communication.

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The readings state how crucial design is when drafting our documents. Design has a great impact on people’s decisions (to purchase, to read the rest of the document/website, etc.). Tropicana’s example is interesting as it illustrates well the concept. Changing the design made it impossible for most consumers to buy the product, as they were used to see the previous packaging. They may think the content has changed as well (which refers to the persuasive quality of design). In addition, they were unable to make any difference with the other Tropicana products.

Another aspect that caught my attention was that design aimed at guiding the readers to "find the information in an effortless way", as it is said in the Blog. Some examples I am thinking of are the PowerPoints of our professors. Well-designed presentations (with appropriate colors and size of the titles, images and graphs, etc.) make me feel like focusing more on each slide. Consequently, good designs help me better grasp the meaning and efficiently appeal to my attention. As the Chapter 11 explains, “a graphic (which is part of the design) should tell the story” and if ever the reader is having hard times understanding it, then it means the design is not as good as it can be.

As writers of instructions, we will, indeed, have a very short period of time to appeal to the readers. The article on BBC News's website reports “Judgments about website design are made in about one 20th of a second” which is interesting. I am sure it happened to all of us. Last semester, I had to write a Business Plan about wedding-planning and I looked at many wedding-planning websites. I first judged their overall aesthetic appeal before getting to know more about the website and its services. I knew the quality of the services might not be related to the quality of the website’s design. Yet, I could not help focusing on the latter.

When reading Chapters 10 and 11 and the Instructor's Blog, I found the blog the most helpful and informative. I find this the most helpful, partly, because of it's great design. I agree that design is more important than people think or realize. The examples from the blog were very helpful and used examples from real life that I could understand and apply to my life, more so than the book. I learned how bad design can be very harmful, as in the Tropicana juice example. They made their product blend in with other juices, when in the past they have stood out on the shelf. One man even claimed that he bought the wrong juice twice because of the new juice container. I would never want to be the person responsible for such a mistake. I learned all the good qualities a desing should have. First of all, a good design is invisible. This is so true. Good designs help the reader to find information effortlessly. It is true that most of the time, we only notice a design if it is bad or distracting. Secondly, a design is persuasive. It should persuade your reader to read your information. It should make things as easy as possible on your reader. I completely agree that a good design will make an audience trust you and your information, just like the blog said, it is very obvious when you get an email that is phony or look at a phony website. The reason these things stand out is because the poor or lack of design. When I am reading something, I am much more likely to continue reading all the information and believe it if it is presented well. The third thing a good design should do is guide the eye. This is so important now days. You want your design to be looked at, and your customer or viewer to immediately need to see what your product is about. I think that headlines or titles are very important in this aspect, as well as any pictures or graphics. I know when looking at the design in something, those are the first two things that I look at. I think the hardest thing that the blog tried to show us how to do properly is incorporate white space effectively. I feel like this is the biggest flaw and thing that stands out in a bad design. I personally, have the hardest time with this myself. Sometimes too much or too little white space can just make things look wrong or awkward. I realize now, just as the last point on the blog makes, that good design requires careful attention to detail. I have not really paid much attention to this in the past, but now I surely will. I realize how important design is, like one of the articles say in one-twentieth of a second your reader will make up their mind about your design, so better make it perfect.

Chapter 10 holds important information. At the beginning of the chapter, the book covers the five principles of design. Balance, alignment, grouping, consistency, and contrast are the five principles of design. If the document is balanced left to right, top to bottom then the instruction set is balanced. Alignment refers to the alignment of images and words to show the documents structure. Grouping is how you place related words and pictures near each other. Consistency is the design features are used consistently so the document looks uniform. Contrast refers to the significant difference between documents. Chapter 10 holds different pictures of good balanced layout and poor layout.

In document 10.2 it gives us a good example of proper layout, and has arrows pointing to the effective parts of the document and the different elements that were used to balance the documents. In the next document there is another example which had a simpler design which was still effective. The document that i found important was the online layout for the website, and the reasons for the effectiveness of the layout. The use of cross cultural design is very important because the world market is growing to new countries and because of this it is necessary to expand the people you are targeting. It is important to write for a larger audience and to do it correctly by using the right symbols and design scheme.

In chapter 11, the reading on using video and media in your document it laid out ways to be effective with the use of either the media or audio. In this chapter there are also guidelines on how to use graphics and to keep it simple and that the graphic should reinforce the written text.

In the Design blog the information about great design being invisible, design is persuasive, design guides the eyes to the important elements of the document. Layout and balance are key to a great document. The two bear examples were effective the first one seemed very jumbled up and confusing but the second one was laid out more effectively. The only thing that changed was the way the words were laid out, but the picture was in the same place unchanged. If the written part of a document is pushed together it is less effective then a document that is spread out.

After reading Chapter 10, Chapter 11, and the Instructor's Blog on Design, I feel that the most important piece of information is that good design helps establish the ethos of a document before any of the content has the opportunity to do so. I've designed several professional grade websites and constantly notice poor design on the internet. A bad layout immediately discredits all of the information on a site. I'm reminded of the Rubik's Cube Instruction Set in which red text was placed over a green background. The poor design of this website made the instructions almost impossible to read and made the author seem like he/she had no idea what they were talking about. Someone searching for instructions on solving a Rubiks' cube would unquestionably move to another website after encountering the aforementioned site's design.

Also, I feel that Chapter 10's five principles of design are very useful and are pertinent to our instruction set project. The five principles are balance, alignment, grouping, consistency, and contrast. It will be very easy to test my instruction set to make sure it abides by these five principles and in doing so, I will ensure that my set is properly designed. Chapter 11 touches on the use of graphics in professional documents. I think the information that stood out to me the most was that graphics should reinforce the written text, not replace it. I feel like, while creating an instruction set, it would be incredibly easy to rely more on your images to do the work for you than the text. I will keep this in mind while creating my instruction set and plan to create explicit, well-written text independent of the included images.

From reading these links alot of things caught my eye about having a good design layout for my instruction manual. I think these things will help me greatly in my project.

For starters, the thing that caught my eye the most was when the blog was talking about how our eyes judge a website within 1/20th of a second. The more I thought about the more I realized how aften I do this. If a website is not appealing to me or is too slow loading (which may not be the fault of the author) I don't even bother reading or even skimming the site.

I also learned what to have and what not to have in a good layout. First of all the layout as a whole should caught ones eye. It should be simple and related to your topic. The design should be a product interface, it should be well put together and be easy to follow.

The five steps to making a good layout are balance, alignment, grouping, consistency, and contrast. These steps will definetly help me in making a good layout. If the layout is not properly put together people will not come to read it. The design is to guide the eye throughout the layout, if you don't have that you don't have anything.

Screen captures are good to include as well. Especially for people as myself who is most of a visiual person. Without photos it is really hard for me to follow directions fully and properly.

What I got out of reading TCT Chapters 10/11 as well as the instructor’s blog was that design is the most important thing in an instruction set, though the least talked about. If you don’t follow the five principles of design then you end up with a very unbalanced, hard to follow instruction set. The instruction set should be, balanced, aligned, grouped, consistent, and contrast. The information shouldn’t be wedged into one corner; rather it should be spread out equally among the page. There have been many times when reading a magazine I get thrown off by all the images and text wedged and jammed together. It makes it hard to read because there is no rhythm and everything runs into together. Also, I agree when the instructor blog talked about a good design plan being invisible. The design should flow and shouldn’t take effort to find the information that is being sought after. When companies fail at this it can be seen like in the example of Tropicana Juice. They abandoned their logo, and customers were left confuse at which juice was which. Before they were able to see the logo and get the Tropicana without thinking about it; however, after the logo change people were not able to do this and even bought the wrong juice. Also, the instructor blog made very good suggestions about using images in the instruction sets. The images should be very clear and be follow parallelism. They should be the same size and format unless in specific cases when they need to be made smaller or bigger. Also, if the image is too big it can be distracting. It should be cropped to only show the step necessary. I know when I am downloading games some of the screen shots posted on what I should be doing are too big and make it hard to locate the actual step.