Designing Documents for People to Use

What is it about?

This article reports on the work of Communication Research Institute (CRI), an international research center specializing in communication and information design. With the support of government, regulators, industry bodies, and business—and with the participation of people and their advocates—CRI has worked on over 200 public document design projects since it began as a small unit in 1985. CRI investigates practical methods and achievable standards for designing digital and paper public documents, including forms; workplace procedural notices; bills, letters, and emails sent by organizations; labels and instructions that accompany products and services; and legal and financial documents and contracts. CRI has written model grammars for the document types it designs, and the cumulative data from CRI projects has led to a set of systematic methods for designing public-use documents to a high standard. Through research, design, publishing, and advocacy, CRI works to measurably improve the ordinary documents we all have to use.

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Why is it important?

Highlights The CRI research program has for years been developing widely-accepted digital and paper public forms and documents designed for people to use. The CRI is responsible for groundbreaking Information Design research and advocacy, and has conducted hundreds of projects in collaboration with governments, industry, consumers, patients, and citizens. CRI employs user testing not only to ensure that our work attains the standards we seek, but also as part of what we consider to be good form in design practice.

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