Pleasing the reader by pleasing the eye—Part 1 The role of format and design in readability Gabriele Berghammer1, Anders Holmqvist2 Correspondence to: 1the text clinic, Vienna, Austria 2Holmqvist AD & Bild, Lund, Sweden Gabriele Berghammer
[email protected]; www.the-text-clinic.com Abstract Whoever writes wants to be read. Yet, even if we punctuation marks, and visuals are arranged on a succeed in creating an informative, logically struc- piece of paper can be as much a part of the story tured, and adequately worded text tailored to our as the content itself. They can make or break a target audience, i.e., text we consider to have an message. adequate level of readability, our documents may At least that ’s what we thought. Seeing, however, still go unread—or read with antipathy. Next to lin- that many of today’s publications, particularly in the guistic factors, therefore, there is a wide range of areas of technical, informational, and instructional other aspects determining how well we understand prose, fall short of what we have come to perceive a text, including layout, typography, or cultural ade- as essential aspects of our crafts, we started to ask quacy. Documents people can use effectively and ourselves whether, in these fast-paced times of with ease have language, graphics, and design budget constraints, format and design had become combine into a harmonious whole. Good design an obsolete luxury reserved for belletristic literature helps arouse interest and singles a text out from or art. Not long ago, one of the authors (GB) read a many others that vie for our attention.