Presentation by H. Allen Brizee; Adapted from Baker (2001)

• Presentation by H. Allen Brizee;
• Adapted from Baker (2001)
• Brought to you in cooperation with the Purdue Online Writing Lab

• HATS - A Design Procedure for Routine Business

• HATS: Introduction

• Use HATS to create documents that are easy to access, easy to navigate, easy to remember:
• Headings – to promote easy navigation
• Access – to promote the finding and understanding of information
• Typography – to promote ease of reading and clear levels of information hierarchy
• Space – to promote effective document design

• HATS: Introduction

• Readers need information quickly, so documents should ensure easy access to important information:
• Writing should be clear and concise. But before audiences read words, they must access the document
• Documents that are easy to access and understand are more persuasive and user-centered
• Use HATS: Headings, Access, Typography, Space

• HATS: Headings

• Headings
• Headings are navigation signposts in table of contents
• Headings help guide readers through documents
• Headings announce forthcoming information

• Introduction
• This report overviews the history of air pollution in greater Lafayette, Indiana, and it discusses our ideas for reducing air pollution.

• Table of Contents
• Introduction
• Background
• Problem

• HATS: Headings (cont.)

• Adequacy – Documents should have an ample number of headings to serve as navigation signposts
• Hierarchy – Use typeface, size, style, and alignment to show different levels of importance and detail:

• Background
• This section outlines the history of air pollution in greater Lafayette…
• The Early Years
• During the industrial growth of the early twentieth century…

• HATS: Access

• Access
• Readers should be able to find and understand important information easily
• To ensure easy access of important information:
• Use bullets or dashes, or for steps, use numbers. Note the architecture in this presentation
• Use graphics such as tables, graphs, process charts, and photographs

• HATS: Access (cont.)

• Graphics – Think of yourself as an information designer not just a wordsmith. Here are some suggestions:

• HATS: Typography

• Typography
• Typeface has persuasive impact and can be changed to improve design
• Avoid using more than two types of font in one document
• Make sure you can read all the text against the background
• Unless instructed otherwise, left-justify your body text

• HATS: Typography (cont.)

• Typography Continued: Fonts
• Use Times New Roman for body text
• Use Arial or other sans serif fonts such as Franklin Gothic Book for headings.
• Avoid unusual fonts such as Hobo Std for professional documents
• Use 10 or 12 point font for body text.
• For headings, bold the text or use a different font; bolding and underlining is overkill

• HATS: Space

• Space
• Use plenty of space so you don’t overwhelm readers
• Ensure that appropriate top, bottom, left, and right space margins frame the elements on a page (1 inch margin is good)
• Allow for space around visuals rather than using frames, unless an edge of your visual bleeds into the white space of the page
• Do not crowd your words. Trust your eyes when you step back to view your page at a distance
• Use this presentation to guide you. Your documents should be visually effective, and they should contain good content

• Here is an overview of how pages look from a distance:

• Traditional essay: large blocks of text, information difficult and time consuming to retrieve

• Report format with small, well-balanced blocks of concise information, easy to access; essay topic sentence becomes heading

• HATS: Space (cont.)

• HATS: Space (con’t.)

• Design – The first thing readers see is the design of your document. If your document does not look professional and effective, your ethos will suffer.
• Use the elements of design outlined in this presentation:
• Colors – Make sure colors work well together
• Avoid combinations such as yellow-orange, black-purple
• Consider cultural expectations and color blind readers
• Colors on monitors and colors on paper look different
• Consider that you may not have access to a color printer, so design documents that look good in black and white

Shapes – Avoid awkward shapes or shapes that do not work well together

• Shapes – Avoid awkward shapes or shapes that do not work well together
• Spheres, see below, can work well in documents
• Always look at your document from a distance; turn it upside down, tilt it. Do the shapes conflict?

• HATS: Space (cont.)

• HATS: Space (cont.)

• Placement – Cultures reading from left to right move in the Z pattern as they read down a page
• Place visuals and text accordingly, with the most important information in upper left and bottom right areas
• Contrast – Allow for contrast on your page
• Do not place a line of circles on the same plane on a page; place visuals and text using the Z pattern so that you create an effective contrast
• Balance – Balance your pages and make sure that your eye is not drawn to any area of the page unintentionally
• How is your page going to be viewed? By itself, opposite another page?
• Do the two pages work well together?

• Z pattern
• Contrast: circles aren’t on same plane
• Balance: page is balanced

• HATS: Space (cont.)

• HATS: Recap

• To Recap – Ask these questions when using HATS:
• Headings – Are there enough headings? Do they reflect a clear hierarchy?
• Access – Is important information easy to find? Is the information easy to digest? Does the method of presentation enhance readability and clarity?
• Typography – Does the document use the most appropriate typefaces, size, styles, and alignment for both body text and headings?
• Space – Does the document have appropriate white space to make it inviting and easy to read?

• The End

• HATS - A Design Procedure for Routine Business
• Presentation by H. Allen Brizee;
• Adapted from Baker (2001)
• Brought to you in cooperation with the Purdue Online Writing Lab