Visual Design

Straight Text vs. Outlines or Lists

• Straight Text
  
  
  • Requires more attention, assumes reading through
    
  • More individual, good for narrative, connecting with readers
    
    

• Outlines or Lists
  
  
  • Needs less attention, allows skimming
    
  • Feels generic, good for emphasizing main points, creating an energetic tone
    
    

Graphic Elements

Graphics must complement, or illustrate text	"Ozone loss over the South Pole in 1995 (in green) compared with 1993 (in red). The blue line shows values before ozone destruction began. Source: National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration."
Add appropriate captions
Design for easy reading
Be aware of copyright issues
Consider your medium

Using Images

NIST physicist, Deborah Jin, aligns an infrared laser for a magneto optical trap as part of a NIST-JILA project to create "superatoms." Some data about super-atoms is expressed in the illustration below.	©Geoffrey Wheeler Photography
Velocity-Distribution Data, image by Mike Matthews, JILA
Images can provide information about the context of your work, or the actual appearance of something; usually with a photograph
Images can illustrate your data or devices, as with a graph, chart or diagram.

Images courtesy of the National Institute of Standards and Technology and JILA Labs at the University of Colorado/Boulder.

Effective Use of Color

Muted colors and low contrasts are easier for the eye to read
Bright colors attract attention, but are hard to read and will tire the eye quickly
	Use color in ways that follow cultural practice: red for hot, blue for cold, and so on

Graphics may be used in a more abstract way to clarify the organization of your document:

• Icons can help your audience navigate quickly and easily
  
• Color coding sections or types of information is especially useful in manuals or textbooks
  
  

• Color can also work within a page:
  
  
  • Organize data and orient readers with tabs, colored headers, etc.
    
  • Emphasize important ideas with highlights, callouts, sidebars, etc.

Words of Caution

• Make sure your documents are accesible:
  
  • To those with disabilities
    
  • To those with limited technology
    
    

• Make sure to avoid visual distortions:
  
  • Use accurate graphics--the true and whole situation
    
  • Make sure your visuals aid rather than confuse readers

Visuals have rules, rhetoric, and grammar. You must take the same care with these as with the textual portion of your document. You must also make every effort to make visuals work for everyone, regardless of technology or disability.

Accessibility

• Provide handouts summarizing oral presentations
  
• Include clear captions and explanations of visuals
  
• Provide light-images or text-only versions of web documents
  
• Label each block of text and each image with an HTML "title" tag
  
• Try to avoid web designs that require viewers to have special programs or plug-ins

T. V. Raman, a researcher at IBM, had this to say in his article Net Surfing Without A Monitor, Scientific American (Internet Special) March 1997:

The author scribbling on his virtual page must tag each block of text with a code indicating its function (title, footnote, summary, and so on) rather than its mere appearance (24-point boldface, six-point roman, indented italics, and so on). Programs can then interpret the structural tags to present documents as the reader, rather than the creator, wishes. Your software may render titles in large type, whereas mine could read them à la James Earl Jones. Moreover, listeners can browse through a structured text selectively in the same way you skim this printed magazine.

Fortunately, Hypertext Markup Language (HTML)--the encoding system used to prepare text for the World Wide Web--was designed to capture the structure of documents.

Avoiding Visual Distortion

• Present accurate diagrams by using the correct scale
  
• Give the whole picture by providing enough data
  
• Match visuals to audience needs and expertise
  
• Make visuals easy to find and understand

Using visuals properly is essential because viewers often accept visual information as more "real" than text, especially if it is photographic in nature.

Here are some helpful criteria for evaluating your visuals: Checklist for Visuals, adapted from John Lannon.