Differences between screen document and print document design
Before the emergence of internet, the print documents design principles were heavily emphasized. With the advent of internet which creates importance in on-screen documents, the print document design principles were challenged as it may not be all applicable to the on-screen document design.The following discussion will use PowerPoint slides to represent on-screen documents while magazines will represent print document design. The application of theories to PowerPoint slides and magazines below may not be applicable to other types of on-screen or print documents.
The PowerPoint slides shown below are extracted from my own group's presentation slide for Issues in Publication and design (IPD) summary review presentation.
The traditional print document design theories:
1. "reading path are from left to right, top to bottom" (Kress & Leeuwen 2006, p.177).
As the reading path of readers are being said to follow such rules, documents are being designed to place old information on the left while new information on the right and promises of a product or information on the top while the actual information or product is placed at the bottom of the page (Kress & van Leeuwen , p.186).
For instance, the snapshot of the Cleo Malaysia September 2012 edition below shows the reading path of top and bottom where the picture of the couple on the page shows the feeling which users can feel when using the promoted product, Enchanter perfume. The wordings and the bottle of perfume at the bottom of the page shows the actual product being promoted. Therefore, readers will look at the top to the bottom and the concentration is at its peak at the bottom of the page as they are being loaded with new information.
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Enchanter advertisement on Cleo Malaysia September 2012 edition |
However, on the PowerPoint slides, the reading path may be different depending on the design and layout of the slides.
The PowerPoint slides below shows a reading path from the top to the bottom which is the same for a print document. However, the layout of the information is not the same as on a printed magazine as all information on the PowerPoint slide are new information which is to be presented to the audience. Therefore, there are no layout of new versus old information on a PowerPoint slide. Also, the concentration is peak throughout the reading from top to bottom due to the new information.
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A slide extracted from my group's IPD presentation |
Information on magazines are typed and printed in the form of an essay with its attractive introduction, comprehensive and detailed points with supporting materials and a good conclusion.
The snapshot of the Timeout KL magazine September 2012 edition below shows that the information provided to the readers are in the form of an essay with full sentences. From far, the paragraphs looks very lengthy but readers of this magazine will be interested to read them as they are bought for reading.
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A snapshot of Timeout KL September 2012 edition |
The situation will be different with regards to information on a PowerPoint slide.
Referring to the PowerPoint slide below, the information is summarized to one or two sentences with a mixture of full sentences and bullet point form. However, the main points are being put in a point form with one to two points in one PowerPoint slide. Also, the examples given for a point are also summarized where full sentences may not be used.
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A slide extracted from my group's IPD presentation |
The writing structure in magazines as shown on the snapshot of Timeout KL September 2012 edition below shows a Diamond form of writing structures. The information in the red box is the opening, the blue box represent 'The Middle' and the green box represent the end segment. The information between those coloured boxes are 'The Breaks'.
The opening box means the opening story of the article where the sparks of the story start there. Comparing with other forms of printed document, The Diamond form "gets more and more detailed, valuable and more complex [unlike]...the usual inverted pyramid form of writing" (Fensch 2001, p.127).
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Application of 'Diamond' form on an article from Timeout KL September 2012 edition. |
The writing structure is different for an on-screen document. The writing structure of a Powerpoint slide emphasize on featuring only the main points in bullet or numbering format. The main points of the PowerPoint presentation are shown below which is the bold words in purple while the small font text in black are the description and examples.
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A slide extracted from my group's IPD presentation |
4. Display Units
According to Farkas (2005, p.11), "the display unit for most print documents is in page [while on-screen document] the display unit for web is HTML and for PowerPoint is slides".
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A power point slide. |
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A print document in Cleo Magazine August 2012 |
The example given for on-screen document is a PowerPoint slide while the print document is a page from the Cleo Magazine Malaysia August 2012 edition. The sample of print document show below is the content page of a magazine which denotes the content in each page of the magazine. Thus, we identify the different content in the magazine through pages. On the other hand, the content in a PowerPoint is identify through the slides.
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The power point slides in print document form |
Moreover, when the on-screen document which is the PowerPoint slides is transferred into a print document form, the display units turns from 'slides' to 'pages'. As shown above, there are six slides in a page and sometimes the display units of 'slides' can be used together with 'pages' when the transfer of publication form occurs as the slides numbers are still visible when printed out on a paper. However, it is up to the user to decide the numbering of slides whether from left to right or top to bottom when the slide number is not visible in the print document.
References:
Bernhardt, SA 1986, 'Seeing the Text', National Council of Teachers of English, vol.37, no.1, pp.66-78, viewed 19 September 2012, <http://www.jstor.org/stable/357383>
Farkas, D 2005, 'Explicit Structure in Print and On-Screen Documents', Technical Communication Quarterly, vol.14, no.1, pp.9-30,
Fensch, T 2001, Writing Solutions: Beginnings, middles and endings, New Century Books, United States of America.
Fensch, T 2001, Writing Solutions: Beginnings, middles and endings, New Century Books, United States of America.
Kress, G & Leeuwen, TV 2006, Reading Images: The grammer of visual design, 2nd edn, Routledge, New York.
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