What is a good document design

What makes a good document? Reep ( 2006) states that a good document need have four major element .
1) balance, 2) proportion , 3) sequence and 4) consistency.

However, a good document need to have information value as Kress ( 2001) stated. A document is useless without information value.

Using my group and my individual assignment's presentation slides as example , I will compare these slides and explain how i utilize the design principles in it.

I have used the same design principle for my group and individual introduction slides. I improvise on Kress (1998) idea on newspaper layout. In this case would be the Ideal-Real design.

Source:http://www.bris.ac.uk/poverty/news_files/independent%20page.jpg

To further explain this concept, Krees ( 1998) explains that the composition of Ideal is at the top part, and Real will be the bottom. Usually Ideal will be fictional , and Real would be facts.In example shown in figure 1. The front page is conveying a message that a lot children is starving. The number 1,000,000,000 is an estimated figure hence justify it's Ideal figure. The bottom Real is real as it shows the picture of starving children as facts.



Group Presentation Introduction slides

Individual Presentation Introduction slides

Both of my introduction slides has the same Ideal-Real Concept shown in pictures above. The placement of UniSA logo and it's name on the top Ideal part is because my ideal goal is to get a degree from UniSA. As for the bottom Real part, my name and my id number is factual and real.



However, my purpose is different for both of my presentation. Therefore its have different style of presenting.The main difference is the content of my presentation. For my group presentation, I am explaining theory and designing concepts whereas I explained coca-cola advertisement for my individual presentation. Therefore my group presentation slides is text heavy and my individual presentation has more pictures.
Group Presentation Slides
Individual Presentation Slides

My group presentation slides is text heavy, and it make the slide boring.According to Nielsen (1997), he say that people do not read word by word especially documents on the internet.People tend to take text in documents for granted and only focus on what their eyes want to see ,therefore i made some changes for my individual presentation slides. To adhere for that theory , i decided to add more picture to my individual slides

The 4 major element in good design stated by Reep (2006) is added to my slides.
There is 1) symmetrical balance ,2) the pictures used has same proportion, 3) there is sequence from left to right as from day to night, 4) the 2 pictures used is consistent with coca cola advertisement.Therefore I believe that my Individual Presentation slides has a good document design.

Reference

Kress, G & van Leeuwen, T 2006, 'Chapter 6: the meaning of composition', in Reading Images: the Grammar of Visual Design, 2nd edn, Routledge, New York , p. 175-214.
Nielsen, J 1997, How users read on web, viewed 5th April 2009,
< http://www.useit.com/alertbox/9710a.html >
Kress, G & van Leeuwen, T 1998, ' Front pages: The critcal analysis of newspaper layout'.

Reep, DC 2006, 'Chapter 4: principles of document design', in Technical Writing, 6th edn, Pearson Edu Inc, New York, p. 173-190.