4.6: Remembering those signposts

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Remembering Those Signposts

Alright, we did it. We got through document design! You’ve undoubtably learned something from all of this, hopefully several somethings. With that said, you may be wondering in the back of your mind how this all will apply to you in a technical writing situation. After all, you signed up for a class in technical writing instead of a class in graphic design. At the very least, consider this content value added—if you never had this knowledge, you do now! At the other extreme, realize that this content is the very heart and soul of what it means to be a technical writer. The formatting and the presentation of the content you write has the same impact and resonance with readers as your choices in the actual words themselves. It all matters and impacts things!

Now that you have a firm grasp of how layout, color, fonts, and all the rest work, use them to make your documents wonderfully signposted and easy to access. You now have a cornucopia of choices to make use of to guide your reader through a text in a certain way or to create a text that lends itself to a particular type of usage. You have a toolbox full of new and at times creative ways of signposting your texts, and that’s exciting! (At least it is for me!)

Here are just a few suggestions:

Signposting Tips

• Think about using color consistently through a document, syncing up with sections, the major colors of your organization, or the thematic that you’re covering (green for green energy, etc).

• Analyze designs with stacking to create your own intricate logos and other effects through layering content to create a cohesive whole.

• Consider using layout to your advantage, creating sidebars with extra information for your readers that need it, while keeping your major text free of extra information that experts simply won’t need to see.

• Choose fonts that sync up to your purpose with using them, allowing different fonts to serve iconic roles, instantly signaling to readers what they’re going to encounter in a given section. (Though, don’t use too many— that gets confusing, just like too many colors).

There are any number of things that can be done with the content we’ve covered—use this content critically and creatively to expand what you can do as a technical writer. I think you’ll find that just this little bit of a background in document design can open doors to any number of possibilities you thought were outside of your reach previously.