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Gurudutt
Kamath
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I saw
the book Dynamics in Document Design by Karen Schriver at the local
bookshop and thought of writing this column. When I met Karen at
a seminar in the US, I invited her to India. I am sure someday some
of you may get a chance to interact with her.
One
of the advantages that print journalists have is that they learn
document design on the job. Today, thanks to computers and design
packages, design awareness is very high. Even the novice computer
user becomes proficient in designing documents within a few days,
if not weeks. Usually, templates are available for brochures, reports,
books, etc. All you need to do is fill in the contents in the readymade
template.
The
last three Help files I worked on received high praise from the
client. All I had done was to use the WebHelp templates that are
so easily available from the RoboHelp (http://www.ehelp.com) website.
Similarly, I have liberally taken inspiration from Word templates
from the Microsoft site. If you are designing websites, the Web
is full of good examples, and bad examples.
Cover
design
All
of us have been exposed to cover design. Books, magazines, brochures,
and websites, all have some element of cover design. How many times
have you picked up a book or a magazine because of its excellent,
eye-catching cover? How many times have you explored a website because
the home page design was appealing?
There
is always a debate whether content is supreme or design is supreme.
Some argue that if the design is not good, no one will touch your
user manual. People like me argue that if the content is not good,
a well-designed manual will be thrown in an equally sophisticated
dustbin. Of course, if you have a good design and the contents are
good, users will read the manual and benefit from it. Take the case
of Wired. The content is good and the design is weird!
Purpose
All
design should serve some purpose. For example, it should guide and
aid readers in understanding the content better. I am sure you have
seen many magazines that have lot of colour and design but lack
in content. You must have seen glossily produced manuals that appeal
at first glance, but when you begin reading, you feel like throwing
them in the dustbin. Of course, thanks to the large number of professionals
(designers and technical writers) today, we see excellently designed
and well-written material.
Design
dynamics
I
have done a Diploma in Journalism and a Diploma in Book Publishing.
In both, I did papers in Printing and hence learnt designing. This
was rounded off with practical experience in various magazines.
Of course, we had artists to do the layout. Finally, today there
are desktop publishing professionals who are adept in design. Only
a few are really artists or have degrees or proficiency in art.
Most are just those who learned design by using PageMaker and CorelDraw!
I must confess that I myself have become proficient in design by
using PageMaker and other DTP tools.
But
the basics I learnt about fonts, type size, leading, white space,
serif and sans serif fonts has stood me in good stead. Similarly,
I learnt a lot about photographs, images, charts and so on.
While
justified text is out and left-aligned text is in for a long time—still
you will find votaries of justified text. In the best of manuals,
you will find underlined text. Underlining is typewriter technology!
Today, when you have hundreds of fonts, thousands of font sizes,
millions of colours, why would you require underlining to emphasise
text? This shows the ignorance of document design.
Web
design
When
the Web exploded on us, all of us overnight became Web designers.
I maintained my website for a couple of years just by knowing a
few HTML tags. I did buy Eric Ray’s book on HTML and did browse
through it. Nevertheless, I used my design sense and knowledge of
HTML tags to design the site. Not a great site by any standard.
However, as I mentioned, I gave importance to content.
Web
design is highly complex today and is a heady mix of content, design
and computer programming! One has to work in a team to design effective
sites that capture eyeballs and get business. If you are designing
an e-learning site then your students must feel like returning repeatedly
to your classroom. The learning should be effective. You do all
this by placing the visual elements correctly. There are many studies
that indicate which fonts, sizes and colours are better on the computer
screen.
Feedback
I
receive at least one or two letters every day from you my dear readers.
Thank you for writing to me and encouraging me. Last week a reader
(an engineer doing maintenance work in a call centre) wrote that
he had become a technical writer due to this column. Well, I am
delighted to hear that. May each one of you become an excellent
technical writer!
Gurudutt
Kamath is a technical writer based in Mumbai. Feedback on the column
may be sent to documentor@vsnl.com
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