Designing for online versus for print

The two images above are good example in showing the difference between designing for printed and online media. It was taken from the same source but published in different genre. In comparison, in printed document, designers fit in text within the allocated space, meanwhile, web document designers have to consider of allocating white or blank space for the readers’ eyes to rest (Repp, 2006, p. 157).

In designing for online sources, designers have to be well-aware of the size of the page, since oversize webpage is difficult to read and cannot fit in some monitors (Toor, 1998, p. 164). Whereas, in creating a printed document, designers should focus on the layout, to attract the readers to keep flipping through the pages.

As Kress and van Leuween says ‘multimodal text’ means a text which contains words and

images which integrate in bringing up the meaning of the document. Printed materials are a form of multimodal text document which meant to be read and carried so the designers have to create a handy document with an appealing layout, whereas for online material readers are suppose to go form link to link (Toor, 1998, p. 163).

Jacob Nielsen, a usability engineer and web-design consultant, says you have to be succinct in designing for web, because readers’ eyes will get tired easily when they read text on screen, furthermore, reading on screen is 25% slower than reading paper. Since skimming is the most common behavior practiced by online readers, the solution is to write no more than 50% of the text for your hardcopy publication. Remember that readers do not like to scroll the page, so keep it brief and concise.

According to eye tracking visualization, readers usually read in F shape pattern (horizontal movement, second horizontal movement, and vertical movement). So that they only skim through some paragraphs to find the information.

Reference:

Kress, G & van Leeuwen, T 1998, ‘chapter 6: The meaning of composition in Front Pages: Analysis of newspaper layout, in COMM 1033 (UNISA reading library).

Nielsen, J 1997, Be Succint!, Jakob Nielsen’s Alertbox, March 15,viewed 29 April 2008<http://www.useit.com/alertbox/9703b.html> .

Reep, D C 2006, ‘Chapter 6: Document Design’ in Technical Writing: Principles, Strategies and Readings, 6th edn, Pearson Education.Toor, M L, 1998, Graphic Design on the Desktop: A Guide For the Non-designer, 2nd edn, John Wiley & Sons., Canada.