Chapter 12: Using Visual Forms
The most interesting point in this chapter for me is the relationship of visuals and text in a document. We see this kind of thing everywhere. I saw a road sign in Minnesota "Blind Intersection Ahead" where the color and shape of the sign combine with the text to make meaning for the drivers who are on that road. We see electronic documents like web sites, this blog, and software help documents that could not relay the intended meaning without that combination of visuals and text.
Our task as technical communicators, as Burnett points out in this chapter, is to make those combinations effective, meaningful, and also ethical.
Can you think of some examples where these combinations were or were not effective, meaningful, or ethical?
Look at the example in the photograph I took of my friends' cafe/grill in Prjnavor, Bosnia. The name of the cafe is DEMI, after one of their sons. Treat the front of the restaurant as a visual/verbal combination (images, color, text, shape.) How have they used visuals and text to inform potential customers? Do you think they have done a good job? Relate your comments to Burnett's seven functions in this example of text and visual.
Our task as technical communicators, as Burnett points out in this chapter, is to make those combinations effective, meaningful, and also ethical.
Can you think of some examples where these combinations were or were not effective, meaningful, or ethical?
Look at the example in the photograph I took of my friends' cafe/grill in Prjnavor, Bosnia. The name of the cafe is DEMI, after one of their sons. Treat the front of the restaurant as a visual/verbal combination (images, color, text, shape.) How have they used visuals and text to inform potential customers? Do you think they have done a good job? Relate your comments to Burnett's seven functions in this example of text and visual.
posted by Lee S. Tesdell at 4:54 PM
2 Comments:
The relationship between text and visuals is very important. Many times, technical communicators forget the importance of visuals in their documents, and don't get their point across due to the lack of visuals.
However, this problem can also work the other way: Today at work my co-worker was trying to figure out how to change the toner in one of the store's printers. She opened the front of the printer and found a small sequence of visual instructions, intended to direct her on how to remove the old toner and insert the new one. There was no textual information in these "directions" and the visuals weren't easy to interpret, so my co-worker had me look at them to make sure she was doing the right thing. This is an example of how the combination of visuals and text is so important - too much or too little of one of the elements can have a negative impact on the document and its effectiveness.
Uploading images to the blog
1. Go to the blog.
2. Click the orange blogger icon in the upper left-hand corner.
3. Log in to blogger.com with your username and password.
Your “dashboard” should appear listing your blog/s.
4. Click the MSU techcomm 271 blog.
5. Click Edit for the posting that you want to upload the photo to.
The “Edit posts” page should appear.
6. In Edit posts, click the image icon just above the text of the existing blog.
7. Here you can upload the photograph or images from your computer.
a. Click Browse to find the image on your computer that you want to upload or add an image from the web.
b. Choose a layout for your image.
c. Click Upload Image to complete the upload process.
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