Dynamics in Document Design: Creating Text for Readers News & Views Book Review

Dynamics in Document Design: Creating Text for Readers Karen A. Schriver by Cheryl Cherry Freelance Writer Dynamics in Document Design: Creating Text for Readers, by Karen A. Schriver. Wiley, 1997. ISBN 0-471-30636-3 $39.95, 560 pp. Originally published in News & Views September 1997 issue. Copyright 1997 STC-Philadelphia Metro Chapter. For permission to reprint this article, contact the Managing Editor.

The sub-title of Karen A. Schriver’s book effectively sums up the author’s focus in this ambitious work. Thinking about readers is of primary importance to Schriver, a researcher, educator, and consultant. To quote the preface, "This book has three broad objectives: (1) to describe how document design has evolved, (2) to characterize how readers think and feel about documents, and (3) to demonstrate the practical advantages of taking the reader’s needs seriously." Each of the three major sections supports one of these objectives. Part One: Situating Document Design, is an extremely detailed look at what document design is, and how the field has evolved. Of particular interest is the author’s description of the three approaches to writing and design: the craft tradition, centered on guidelines and procedures for creating text and graphics the romantic tradition, concerned with expressing the "inner vision of the writer and designer" the rhetorical tradition, focused on the audience Schriver approaches document design from a rhetorical perspective. "Rhetoric?" Isn’t that something Queen Victoria studied as a child? While the "new rhetoricians" do draw on the ideas of ancient Greeks and Romans, their concerns are definitely appropriate for the twenty-first century. As Schriver demonstrates later in the book, the rhetorical approach requires consciously deciding what you want to communicate, and then considering how to achieve your purpose through choice of words, graphics, type and other elements. Observing how members of the audience approach tasks and documents is central to the rhetorical approach. Therefore, in Part Two, Observing Readers in Action, Schriver presents the results of studies that focused on the reader interacting with a document. Within this part, the chapter "How Documents Engage Readers’ Thinking and Feeling" demonstrates that a document’s design sends a message that may be different from the one intended by its creator. The Blame Study was an especially interesting topic in the next chapter, "The Impact of Poor Design: Thinking About Ourselves as Users of Text and Technology." The study revealed that in many cases readers blamed themselves for being unable to perform a task, even though the instruction sheets they received were faulty! The reader’s purpose for reading (or not reading!) a particular document was considered in the research described in "Seeing the Text: The Role of Typography and Space." This chapter also presents some Gestalt principles useful for the document design process. (Psych 101 finally pays off!) The task to be accomplished, as well as the arrangement of text and graphics, affects how the reader searches for information, as shown in "The Interplay of Words and Pictures." Observing isn’t enough; using what you’ve learned is also important in Schriver’s rhetorical approach to document design. To this end, she concludes with Part Three: Responding to Reader’s Needs, in case anyone needs proof that providing better instructions is a good thing. In a study, readers were observed using written instructions when performing various tasks. The instructions were then revised to fix problems users had encountered. A second group using the new instructions could do the tasks faster. In addition to observing readers in action, how can technical communicators put the rhetorical approach into practice? Schriver doesn’t provide easy answers. She states in the preface that "this is not a guidebook . . . In this book I hope to capture the texture of the choices document designers make and represent the subtlety of the knowledge they rely on in carrying out their work." Occasionally, she distills her knowledge into guidelines or heuristics, especially in the section on typography, and in the appendix containing guidelines for designing on-line displays. However, for the most part she is content to give her readers a lot to think about. Additional information about document design is available in the periodicals listed in an appendix. An extensive bibliography is also provided.

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Posted September 20, 1997 (rst)