Dynamics in Document Design: Creating Text for Readers - Softcover

Schriver, Karen A.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0471306363 ISBN 13: 9780471306368

Publisher: Wiley, 1996

Synopsis

From an international leader in document design, research-based insights about writing and visualizing documents that people can use . . .

This book is for writers and graphic designers who create the many types of documents people use every day at home or school, in business or government. From high-tech instruction manuals and textbooks to health communications and information graphics, to online information and World Wide Web pages, this book offers one of the first research-based portraits of what readers need from documents and of how document designers can take those needs into account.

Drawing on research about how people interpret words and pictures, this book presents a new and more complete image of the reader--a person who is not only trying to understand prose and graphics but who is responding to them aesthetically and emotionally.

Written by document design expert Karen A. Schriver, Dynamics in Document Design features:
* Case studies of documents before and after revision, showing how people think and feel about them
* Analyses of the interplay of text and pictures, revealing how words, space, visuals, and typography can work together
* A fascinating and informative timeline of the international evolution of document design from 1900 to the present

About this title

From the Publisher

In this book, one of the world's premier researchers in the evolving field of document design and communication takes a probing look at exactly how people read documents and how they create them. This book provides numerous examples and case studies to assist writers and designers in creating effective documents. Examples include before and after case studies based on user responses, studies of actual design scenarios (including the first technical illustration of the HIV virus), and examples from Scientific American. The Sears Catalog, IRS, The New York Times, and many others.

About the Author

KAREN A. SCHRIVER, PhD, is an internationally recognized expert in document design. Her positions have included the Belle van Zuylen Professor of Language and Communication at the University of Utrecht in Holland, Research Director of the prizewinning Communications Design Center at Carnegie Mellon University, and Research Associate for the National Center for the Study of Writing and Literacy at Carnegie Mellon and the University of California at Berkeley.

Edition details

• Publisher: Wiley
• Publication date: 1996
• ISBN 10: 0471306363
• ISBN 13: 9780471306368
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 592