Designing Visual Language: Strategies for Professional Communicators (Part of the Allyn & Bacon Series in Technical Communication)

Book Description

More often workplace writing and document design takes a backseat in a company's mission/product. This book offers strategies and tools for document design of ALL types. Readers will extend to visual design the approach they assimilate in their writing and editing. It focuses on the kinds of situations and practical documents that employees encounter daily, with a special focus on audience, purpose, and context of the message. Topics include: perception and design; visual analysis; extra-textual design; pictures, and more. Writers and editors who design documents. Part of the Allyn & Bacon Series in Technical Writing, edited by Sam Dragga, Texas Tech University.

Customer Reviews:

Dreadful.......2007-05-21

This book was required for a graduate course in visual communications. The book is written in a style of chest-puffing academic balderdash that renders it useless and unreadable. Crummy paper and truly ugly illustrations add to the miasma. I usually keep classroom texts but I'm selling back this one. I won't get much money though because it's so poorly bound that it looks much more used than it really was. Poor unlucky student who buys it.

Poor quality.......2005-09-12

The content of this book is not bad, but the actual quality of product is horrendous.

I have had this text for about a week and the pages have already become unbound. Some of the pages look like they were printed on a photocopier running out of ink. The text is fine, but the graphs look terrible. One would think that a book about design would have put more thought into their own design and production run.

My gripe is simply that this book is too much money for the truly piss-poor physical quality. $76 for a book whose binding became unglued in the first week? $76 for a text whose pages look like they were printed on with an empty toner cartridge? This is a sick joke! Designing Visual Language is a piece of junk and Allyn & Bacon should be ashamed of themselves for having no quality control.

Addendum...
I'm wondering why people have not found this review helpful. Is it because they want to buy a book that is poorly made? If so, I invite you to buy the book. Unless Allyn & Bacon make some serious changes, you'll soon think, "Maybe his review WAS helpful after all!" but by that time you'll be out $76.

Designing Visual Language.......2001-07-14

It reads kind of like a text book, but the information is very good. I am trying to learn about graphic design in my free time and this book has helped me to better understand the basics of visual communication. I have also reciently read "The non-designers design book", which I also recommend. This book starts at the beginning and helps you to understand what you must do, and take into account in order to make something visually pleasing. It has helped me in my design efforts. The book was lent to me and now I plan on buying it, it was so good. I might even look into the rest of the books in the series. (The Allyn & Bacon series in Technical Communication) All in all a good book. I give it 4 stars

Human Factors for Technical Communicators

Average customer rating:

we need more people reading stuff like this
Fantastic book!
This book is not a "how-to"
A must read for anyone that communicates online or on paper
Great insite into the Reader

Human Factors for Technical Communicators
Marlana Coe
Manufacturer: Wiley
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0471035300

Book Description

A crash course in human factors theory and practice for technical communicators

If you're a technical writer, technical editor, documentation manager, user-interface designer, usability tester, or any other type of technical communication professional, you've probably found yourself becoming more and more involved in the development, design, and testing of technical communication products. In order to handle your expanded responsibilities effectively you need a solid grounding in human factors, the art and science of designing for people. And now this book gives it to you—fast.

First, expert Marlana Coe takes you on a fascinating tour of the burgeoning science of human factors. In terms that you can understand, she explains all about the psychology and physiology of how users access, learn, and remember information; the impact of colors, shapes, and patterns; learning styles; approaches and obstacles to problem solving; action structures; and more. And, with the help of real-life examples of various technical communication products, she vividly demonstrates what works, what doesn't, and why.

Then, she shows you how to apply what you've learned to create the best technical communication products possible. You'll find out how to:

Analyze users' needs and learning styles
Get and interpret user feedback and create partnerships with users
Select the most effective layouts, colors, fonts, and graphics
Build better navigational infrastructures
Develop content that gives users everything they need to quickly identify and resolve problems
Test and improve your product's usability

Customer Reviews:

we need more people reading stuff like this.......2003-10-08

I cannot tell you how many times, as a techwriter, and content developer, if you work on other people's stuff, edit the engineer's stuff...they think you are "Dumbing-it-down" or castrating it.

They make like they are working on the Next NOBEL PRIZE, and you dare touch their stuff!! How-dare-you! How could a lowly writer understand the full glory of their verbiage?
And the more obscure, passive and inpenetrable it is, the more it makes them look "more better smarter-est", the ole highschool "Baffle them with BS" ploy. If it's in pure ASCII text, even better! See, they are catering to the purest of Intelligencia...

So basically, the writer gets treated like a transcriptionist, or formatter, and god help you if you try to do your job.
And then the schmucks have the nerve to keep asking you back to help them, but keep undermining you.

Then they wonder why nobody likes to use their application. Hmmmmm! I wonder!

Fantastic book!.......2003-01-21

This book is extremely well done, and it can be applied to much more than writing. I think that the bulk of it applies to almost any kind of design, i.e getting to know the users, their needs, abilities, experience, etc. and then involving them in the design, getting feedback, establishing a partnership, etc. It's just the kind of up from the trenches stuff that managers would be wise to listen to but very rarely do. You can definitely sense the frustration the author has in technical writers being the band-aid applied to poor product design and cost-cutting, and she offers concrete alternatives when you have limitations.

I also love the recursiveness of it, in that she is writing the same thing she is also describing, so talk about reading between the lines! I could read it over and over, each time appreciating more and more how she followed her own advice.

This book is what I always look for in a book, because it starts from the beginning and ends at the end, with a clear trail of how it got there. The supporting introduction, glossary, index, notes and references are very well done.

This book is not a "how-to".......2002-04-24

Well, I just got this book. From the Preface: "This book is not a "how-to". This book is one level higher and deals with the cognitive psychological theory of designing and developing technical communication...". Thats not what I need. I looked for "how to' not for another academic book. Well this book is going to the return center.

A must read for anyone that communicates online or on paper.......2000-09-18

If you do any kind of writing for your job buy this book and read it cover to cover. With that said my review follows:

There are so many positives in this book that I will list the negatives first, there are few and very minor at that.

The cover has got to go. It does not represent the depth and wealth of the information inside. To be honest, it looked so poorly thought out and old, I felt the contents of the book must be too. Thankfully, I dropped my bias and was very pleasantly surprized.

The other negative may be my own personal preference, but I like the footnote detail at the bottom of the page, so when I see it I don't have to scoot to the end of the chapter to see what it is. This is how good the book was, I read all the footnotes and references too.

Marlana Coe has created a book that I hope not only do Technical writers from all over read, but Human Factors professionals too. As a fanatic-pursuer of documentation meeting its goal to communicate, this book says it all. The usability measurement on documentation is whether or not it allows the author to communicate to the reader and Marlana Coe shows you just how to do that. In fact, she shows you while doing that herself.

I bought this book because as a Human Factors professional, I find we do not practice what we preach. We review a product and come up with wonderful ideas to make it better and then proceed to hide that in a document that is not geared for the reader. Many technical reports, even the ones that only have a small group of customers, don't meet those customers needs. There are no pictures, tables and diagrams and worst of all no logical organization for the reader to create a structure around the information. The documents are geared for the writer to regurgitate data, not for the reader to absorb it. Granted this is not all, but too much of a majority in a group of people that should know better. Most human factors professional know, how to increase usability of everyone else's product but their own: the technical report they create on products they review. This book bridges that gap, for HF professionals especially. Yes, I'm including myself in this category (I did buy the book after all).

For all the rest of you, this gives you reasons for all the practices that good technical writers should use. From the amount of white space to use to the number of fonts and colors. There are also suggestions on organization and on construction of these documents. One section discussed content and the importance of context of usage. This is something, I never really thought of that much. (Oops).

Another thing the author has done was fashion a book on a technical subject and made it readable. This is something she also covers in her book. Her language is natural and she has not fallen into the trap of using technical words or ones that may escape the average readers vocabulary.

In a word: Fantastic!

Great insite into the Reader.......2000-04-04

Coe does a great job of introducing the reader to the writer. There are so many things that we as writers don't think about, or take for granted when we write. This book really opened my eyes not only as a writer but also as a reader to the importance of understanding how people read, understand, learn, and absorb information.

Management Principles and Practices for Technical Communicators (Part of the Allyn & Bacon Series in Technical Communication)

Average customer rating:

Management Principles and Practices for Technical Communicators (Part of the Allyn & Bacon Series in Technical Communication)
R. Stanley Dicks
Manufacturer: Longman
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0321165233

Book Description

Management Principles and Practices for Technical Communicators combines theory and practice in a manner designed to help practicing managers understand their applications in tasks they are likely to encounter every day. The book covers areas of management that are specific to technical communication groups, repeatedly focusing on how such groups should position themselves within larger organizations and how they should interact and communicate with other groups. Anyone in the field of technical communication interested in the basic principles and real world practices of management and their applications.

How to Be a Great Communicator: In Person, On Paper and At the Podium (Gildan Audiobooks)

Average customer rating:

Way too much needless information
Nothing Much
Learn From the Master!
Want to be Spoon Feed? This Is YOUR BOOK!
I learned so much from this one book!

How to Be a Great Communicator: In Person, On Paper and At the Podium (Gildan Audiobooks)
Nido Qubein
Manufacturer: Coach Series
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Binding: Audio CD

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ASIN: 1596590254

Book Description

Today, humanity forms a global tribe, and those without good communication skills will find themselves outside the circle of success. Those who learn to communicate effectively with people at all levels, of both genders, and from a variety of cultures and backgrounds will be the pacesetters. Your power to influence the lives of others in the world around you is as great as your ability to communicate. This book will show you how to comunicate effectively with diverse audiences.

Customer Reviews:

Way too much needless information.......2005-03-06

I agree with one reviewer, in the fact that this book is just WAY too full of useless information. 80% of this book is filler. I couldn't even weed through all of the needless information in order for this book to make an impact on me. I was reading, and kept drifting off, because I simply didn't care about most of what he was saying. I wanted to become a 'Great Communicator'. Instead, I found my patience was being tested! I don't recommend this book for anyone who doesn't want to know every little nit picking detail about certain things like the origins of language, and certain common sense things, which he explains in FULL detail.

No need for this book.

Nothing Much .......2005-02-11

That's what it is...It's a book that takes a few key concepts and embellished it to reasonable thickness so as to hit the stores looking good. I finished it in 1 1/2 days - skipping many mundane references. In my opinion, the book is probably worth less than 20 pages of useful material.

Learn From the Master!.......2003-06-21

If you need to be a great communicator to succeed in your profession (that includes everybody!), read this book. Learn from the master-communicator himself, Nido Qubein!

Dr. Michael Beitler
Author of "Strategic Organizational Change"

Want to be Spoon Feed? This Is YOUR BOOK!.......2001-01-15

The book is constantly on the edge of being all fluff. It lacks depth. This book takes the few important things Qubein chooses to share and ever so gently goes over the details. The author talks directly and softly without being chatty. This would be a very good book for a very young reader that wants to learn about public speaking. For adults, looking for a book to practice speed reading and skimming, the book is a truly outstanding. While it is well written and well organized, there is hardly ever a challenging thought. You should be able to read this book at the speed of light. Speed reading and skimming are valuable skills. Personally, I like books that have content density but are well written. Reading this book slowly would be a waste of time. Nearly all books that are made easy to read had an author that is careful not to say to much. This is one of those books manufactured for money. There was no passion to write it. See some of my two dozen reviews on public speaking for a better selection. How did all the excitement and pretense about Nido Qubein develop, certainly not this book. I am anxious to see him speak. I would like to see what makes him famous.

My biggest new lesson from this book was as follows. So many authors on public speaking try to tell us an audience has one mind or a personality, Qubein says: Everybody in the audience is different, an individual. Audience evaluation is not dividing people into bunches.

No offense intended but Qubein expresses a lot of opinions about the business world that are more pie in the sky than based on experience. American business is not well managed, it is just a whale of a lot better than other businesses around the globe. The media and Qubein want to make chief executive officers out to be Stars. Most CEOs bring a lot of limiting baggage to the job. Qubein is on the right track as to were management style should be headed. Corporate loyalty has been destroyed by shortsighted CEOs and boards of directors. It is going to take a lot more cash in the monthly pay check to hold a good middle management together in the future. Start ups and self employment are sucking the best out of big corporations, because the insensitive Huns are still in control. My opinions are based upon interviewing and tracking top management of hundreds of companies over decades for leading investment firms.

I learned so much from this one book!.......1998-08-22

This book talks about the importance of communication skills. It is full of helpful ideas that will help you and your business. We often don't realize that we spend the majority of our day communicating -- many of us need to improve this skill. This book teaches the importance of simple language while also guiding our words into the next century with the importance of recognizing "politically correct" terminology. This book will help you to communicate more effectively in today's marketplace. It is a fabulous and informative book!

The Creative Communicator: 399 Ways to Make Your Business Communications Meaningful and Inspiring

Average customer rating:

More commonplace than it is creative

The Creative Communicator: 399 Ways to Make Your Business Communications Meaningful and Inspiring
Barbara Glanz
Manufacturer: McGraw-Hill Companies
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Communications | Skills | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books

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ASIN: 0070248125

Book Description

Motivate employees, boost sales, and provide the best customer service--with advice from a popular speaker and consultant. "Nothing in life is more important than communicating with each other. . .and this book is the very best I've read on the subject."--Og Mandino, author of The Greatest Salesman in the World. The Creative Communicator will appeal to the same readers who loved CARE Packages for the workplace. This uplifting book offers 399 easy-to-implement ideas covering all the bases of business communication, including ways to show everyday appreciation to clients and staff; tips for developing newsletters and brochures; using e-mail, voice mail, an dfaxes to send positive messages; and more.

Customer Reviews:

More commonplace than it is creative.......1999-04-10

While this book might be useful to stretch the minds of managers seeking alternate ways to "reach out to" customers and employees, the title makes it easy to mistake the book for a guide to INNOVATIVE business WRITING, which it clearly is NOT. It is also not a place to get on the path to creating communications that are really "outside the box." Many of the 399 ideas given are commonplace nowadays and as a reader I found myself getting irritated that I had to spend $14.95 to read about marketing gimmicks I have already been the recipient of many times. To summarize, I felt this book was dated...not particularly well laid-out... and the few illustrations/cartoons peppered throughout were often printed too small to understand easily. I plan to return this book.

Average customer rating:

The Creative Communicator
Marea Stenmark
Manufacturer: Angus & Robertson
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The Creative Communicator: 399 Ways to Communicate Commitment Without Boring People to Death!

Average customer rating:

The Creative Communicator: 399 Ways to Communicate Commitment Without Boring People to Death!
Barbara A. Glanz
Manufacturer: Irwin Professional Pub
ProductGroup: Book
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Average customer rating:

Creative communicators

Manufacturer: Royal Pub
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Unknown Binding
ASIN: 0934344329

Document Design: A Guide for Technical Communicators

Average customer rating:

Document Design: A Guide for Technical Communicators
Miles A. Kimball , and Ann R. Hawkins
Manufacturer: Bedford/St. Martin's
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0312436998

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