EXERCISE

The goal of this activity is to focus on the relationship between purpose, audience, and document design. Document design is key not only to the accessibility and readability/skimmability of your report, but to the achievement of the report’s purpose with its target audience. This analysis will help you get ideas for the document design of your report, and the impact those design decisions have on achieving your purpose for your target audience.

To learn about document design, you will closely analyze specific design elements in an exemplar report with an eye toward purpose and audience.

The Activity

• Use Google to locate an exemplar report to analyze. The report may be any type you like.
• First, identify the purpose the report, and state who you think the target audience is.

Then, look at your report. Analyze the document design for the following elements. Describe how your report handles these elements and whether you think it’s effective for the target audience:

1. Title Page
2. Use of headers/footers (e.g., page numbers)
3. Use of headings
4. Use and integration of visuals
5. Organization of sections (i.e., analysis of the table of contents)
6. Use of research (especially in the problem and recommendation/solution sections)