Design Tips for Engineers

Engineers are not usually great graphic designers. This does not mean our documents and presentations have to be poorly designed. There are a few basic tips we can follow.

I learned these tips from the book Design for Non-Designers. The four principles make an easy-to-remember acronym: CRAP. So, this article is a quick overview of how to Design like CRAP ??

• Contrast
• Repetition
• Alignment
• Proximity

There are benefits—some more obvious than others—to good design. To name a few:

• We make a better first impression.
• Our content has a better chance of being understood.
• We are more likely to be trusted.
• Floridians can vote for their preferred presidential candidate (I'll explain later).

Contrast

Principle: If two items are not exactly the same, then make them different. Really different.

We can add contrast in font size, color, font type, background color, or with visual elements.

Consider this newsletter:

The content is there. But, we could add a bit of contrast in color, font-sizes and with visual elements. Here is the same content with a lot more contrast:

I find these types of layouts easier to make in PowerPoint than Word. Even without all of the graphics, contrast was introduced across this document to improve accessibility of the content:

• The background color creates a contrast.
• The font size and color for each section header creates a contrast.
• The title of the newsletter has a VERY different font and color scheme from the rest of the content.

Repetition

Principle: Repeat some aspect of the design throughout the entire piece.

Repetition is easy to notice. Almost anything can be repeated: header styles, visual elements, color schemes, or layouts.

Consider ODOT's TSMO Program as an example. The program has two primary design elements:

• The orange arrow
• A green bar

These elements are repeated throughout all of their content: plans, studies, videos, websites and social media.

Alignment

Principle: Nothing should be placed arbitrarily. Every item should have a visual connection with something else.

We have a tendency to fill up all available space with our content. It is not natural for us to leave empty space on our documents. However, if we consciously place each element, our documents look more professional. Consider a common business card layout:

It appears nothing was placed on purpose. Contact information was placed in the corners because, well, there was nothing else in the corners. If we consider how to align the content, we can improve the design:

As shown by the imaginary line, each element in the updated design has one common alignment. We also grouped the content for improved proximity, our final design principle.

Proximity

Principle: Group related items together. Physical closeness implies a relationship. This GIF explains the concept:

Consider a simple agenda as an example. This could be an email or a one-page document. This agenda appears to have been created by somebody in a hurry:

It would take too much effort—unnecessary effort—for somebody to understand the logistics of attending these discussions. The poor design may cause somebody to miss an important detail.

By grouping related items, the reader is more likely to find the information they seek.?

To summarize the four principles:

Contrast: If two items are not exactly the same, then make them different. Really different.

Repetition: Repeat some aspect of the design throughout the entire piece.

Alignment: Nothing should be placed arbitrarily. Every item should have a visual connection with something else.

Proximity: Group related items together. Physical closeness implies a relationship.

What about voting in Florida?

This was the ballot used in Florida for the 2000 presidential election.?

You may remember the controversy with this election. A non-partisan group performed a thorough study to investigate what happened.

George Bush won Florida—and therefore the presidency—by 537 votes.

5,237 people in Palm Beach County alone voted for both Pat Buchanan and Al Gore; invalidating their ballot. Looking at the ballot above, you can see why:

• They punched in the second "hole" (marked as # 4) assuming it was a vote for Al Gore.
• Then, they realized Al Gore was actually the third hole (marked as # 5). Oops, bad design.
• So, they also punched the third hole attempting to cast their actual vote.
• Which invalidated their entire ballot.

So, in a way, bad design helped pick the President of the United States. Unfortunately, the results of the non-partisan study were released shortly after 9/11 happened. So nobody had time to think about bad design.

It only takes a few simple design tweaks—specifically improved alignment, proximity, and contrast—to imagine an improved ballot design: