Designing

Designing represents the look and feel of the document and its structured flow. While designing a document, it is important to include the following basic elements:

1. Cover Page: 

This should contain the title of the document and a short description about the document content.

2. Title Page:

This is the first page of the document. It contains the title of the document. It is always good to cross reference this title with rest of the title name inside the document. Even if the title changes during the project, it will be easy to edit it through out the document.

3. Copyright Page:

If the particular document holds any copyright value, then that information should be mentioned at this copyright page. 

4. Revision Page:

This page should contain the revision version numbers and the current version of the document. This can be of the format as follows:

5. TOC Page:

This is the Table of Content page which contains the headings of the documentation. This helps in easy understanding of the document flow. This helps both reader and the writer. It helps the reader to have a quick glance of the document, and for writer, it helps in capturing all the information with out fail.

6. Introduction Page:

It is mandatory to have an introduction section to any document. The introduction of the document should provide the relevant information about the scope of the document.

7. Documentation Page:

Make sure that the document contains all the information related to the TOC. Also, never forget to update the TOC after the completion of the document. It is important that the TOC should link the document structure perfectly. Any anonymous heading creates unwanted confusions.

8. Appendix Page:

This contains information, such as expansions and explanation that are not necessary for the document but helpful to the user.

9. Glossary Page:

Though there is no big difference between Appendix and Glossary, a glossary contains the expansion and explanation in a single sentence. 

10. Index Page:

Index contains the names and subject of the document, in alphabetic order referenced to the location i.e. page number.

11. Back Cover Page:

The back cover page can contain the title and the version of the document. We can also include the logo if available.

Based on the above basic elements, the writer should first develop the template or use the existing templates. We should always remember that templates are the “Moulds” to create a document. It can be customized and changed at any point of time based on the requirement.

It is important to follow similar style guide through out the document. In some cases, many writers are involved in creating one document. If each writer follows their own style of writing that becomes an unhealthy presentation. The user can easily find out that these topics were written by one writer and so on. This gives an opportunity for the user to judge the writer.

The user should not think about the writer while reading the content. He/she should always concentrate on the content of the document. It is best formulated if the writer follows a single style of writing. A Style Guide is a set of standards that are used for writing and designing a document. We will see more about the style guides in our forthcoming mile stones.