According to Walsh (2006), words no longer play the dominant role, as people now prefer gaining information through multimodal text. Kress and van Leeuwen (2006) also stated that a good document should contain both image and prose to enable a clearer understanding of the content to the viewer. In the previous group presentation, the slide contains both prose and image; with the word as explanation and picture show the representation, audience is able to understand the content noticeably.
In contrast, the slide below is from the individual presentation which only exhibits pictures. Consequently, it creates a lot of queries and doubt to the viewers.
Schriver (1997) stated that, although visuals are able to attract audience’s attention, it may also distract the reader from engaging fully with the content. For instance, the picture below shows one of the slides presented in group presentation. In the slide, the picture is placed on the left side and also has same size with the content.
Based on Reep (2006), the arrangement of the design features and size are important as it allows the viewer to notice the key terms. Generally, people read a document from left to right and up to down. Therefore, in the individual presentation, the examples (pictures) have been placed below the important content (prose), in order to draw readers to focus on important points.
Furthermore, Kress and van Leeuwen (2006) indicated that, the contrasting colors of the picture are able to attract viewer’s attention. However if the background’s color is too bright or dark, it may create converse effect such as the viewer will feel uncomfortable when they reading the text. For example, the background color that has been utilized in previous group presentation slides is an abstract color, which will cause the readers feel dazed after looking at the slide for a long period of time.
In conclusion, a multimodal text and design are important to create a good document, which enables the audience to appreciate the document.
References:
Kress, G & Van Leeuwen, T 2006, Reading image .Chapter 1: The semiotic landscape: language and visual communication.
Kress, G & Van Leeuwen, T 2006, Reading image. Chapter 6 : The meaning of composition.
Schriver, KA 1997, Chapter 6 in Dynamic in document design
Reep, Diana C 2006, ‘Chp 4 : Principles Document Design,’ in Technical Writing, 6th ed., Pearson., New York , p.173-190.
Walsh, M 2006, ‘Textual shift’: Examining the reading process with print, visual and multimodal texts,” Australia Journal of Language and Literacy, vol.29, no.1,p24-37
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