Leon de Stadler

Bad document design can hurt your image

So often the bad document design of institutions and companies also reflect badly on their image. The important principle here is that the moment you open your mouth or put your pen to paper you are projecting an image of yourself. The tension then is between your desired image and the image that your readers actually construe from the document. We have all had experience of this, for instance with some of the bad documents that we are confronted with from public institutions.

I have written up a case on this topic - you can read about it here. The title is "Is this who we are? Making your documentation reflect your image."

We have developed a model to deal with this issue, and we are ready to help institutions and companies to control this problem that so often crops up in documentation.

To give you some idea: When we communicate, we actually convey more than one message. Obviously we convey information (that is one message), but we also convey something about ourselves (an expressive message), and we relate to our audience (a relational message). In the process we project an image of ourselves, but also of our audience, and the question then is whether these images are desired images or not?

What our research has shown, is that people so often forget about these other (mostly hidden) messages, and before you realise it, you image is shot to pieces. In blogs to come, I will say more about the research findings from different projects.

Want to know more about the role of communication in establishing your good image? Talk to me!