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Business Communication: Building Critical Skills
Kitty O. Locker, Ohio State University
Steven Kyo Kaczmarek, Columbus State Community College
Kathryn Braun, Sheridan College
Designing Documents, Slides and Screens

E-Learning Session

  1. How should I design paper pages? Follow these five guidelines.
    1. Use white space to separate and emphasize points. TRANSPARENCY MASTER
    2. Use headings to group points.
      • Make headings specific. TRANSPARENCY MASTER
      • Make each heading cover all the material until the next heading.
      • Keep headings at any one level parallel.
    3. Limit the use of words set in all capital letters.
    4. Use no more than two fonts in a single document.
      • Serif fonts have little extensions, called serifs. TRANSPARENCY MASTER
      • Sans serif fonts lack the extensions.
          1. CONCEPT CHECK Concept Check: True or False: Serif fonts are better for the body copy in a letter or memo; sans serif fonts are better for such features as headingsCONCEPT CHECK
    5. Decide whether to justify margins based on the situation and the audience.
  2. How should I design presentation slides? Keep slides simple, relevant, and interesting.
    1. Use a big font: 44- or 50-point for titles, 32-point for subheads, and 28-point for examples.
    2. Use bullet-point phrases rather than complete sentences.
    3. Use clear, concise language.
      • CONCEPT CHECK True or False: Concise language means simply using few words, regardless of the audience or situationCONCEPT CHECK
    4. Make only three to five points on each slide. If you have more points, consider using two slides.
    5. Customize your slides with the company logo, charts, and scanned-in photos and drawings.
  3. How should I design Web pages? Pay attention to content, navigation, and the first screen.
    1. Good Web pages have both good content and an interesting design.
    2. On the first screen,
      • Provide an introductory statement orienting the surfing reader to the organization.
      • Offer an overview of the content of your page, with links to take readers to the parts that interest them.
      • Put information that will be most interesting and useful to most readers.
    3. As you design pages,
      • Use small graphics; keep animation to a minimum.
      • Provide visual variety.
      • Unify multiple pages with a small banner, graphic, or label so surfers know who sponsors each page.
      • On each page, provide
        1. A link to the home page,
        2. The name and email address of the person who maintains the page
        3. The date when the page was last revised.
  4. How should I access my design? Test it.
    1. Where possible, test your document with your audience. TRANSPARENCY MASTER
  5. When should I think about design? At each stage of the writing process.
    1. As you plan, think about audience.
    2. As you write, incorporate lists and headings.
    3. Get feedback from people who will be using your document.
    4. As you revise, check your draft against the guidelines in this module.
      • CONCEPT CHECK True or False: Don't worry about document design until after you've written the document; then, simply hand it off to someone with a background in design to clean up the document. CONCEPT CHECK
  6. Go to the Self Quizzes section if you would like to test your understanding of this module.




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