The text from Park’s “Redesign” is focused on the process of improving, and redesigning, one’s work – typically in a textual layout but can also be compared to the other works (on principle of accessible design for digital text and basic color theory). Just as Park describes the differences in before-after examples of how the redesign process can make a text layout appear smoother or get across what they are trying to accomplish better, so too do both of the other texts. The NCDAE‘s piece on the main principles for creating accessible design focuses on the idea that the simpler you make your digital design (such as a table of Shelly’s daughters and their ages/birthdays), the easier it is to reach many audiences and the less confusion it will cause. In the same sense, Color Matters‘ piece about basic color theory emphasizes the color wheel, the harmony that colors can bring out with one another, and the context that colors can represent when contrasting or set next to one another. In the piece about color, we see very clearly how different the color red looks against different backgrounds – proving that there are better ways to make the focal point clearer to someone based on the design you choose.
These three pieces, though different in terms of what each is discussing, are all similar in their focus on making something look better to an audience. The piece by the NCDAE most predominantly seems to focus on simplicity in design – looking at Park’s examples of improved layouts on articles, ads, catalogs, etc. – I believe Park would agree to many levels that simplicity is best. Where one may want to put in tons of information about “fine timepieces”, the redesign showed as an example by Park saved “precious space” on the ad by “combining the names and descriptions of the watches into single paragraphs.” In many of the redesigns shown in Park’s piece, there appear to be simplified versions of the authors’ original works. By improving on their designs and utilizing the space they have, as well as the way a layout is formatted on the page to bring more attention to the most important words, the designs flow much more simply and are more appealing to your audience. Even basic color theory focuses (maybe more clearly) on simplicity in design because of the obvious appearance of a clashing color combination being distracting or detracting of value from a harmonizing color combination.
Overall, applying these methods mentioned to our own purposes of writing for the public – I would say that, when revising and thinking about your audience, it is key to discuss the importance of “‘more is less”. Try to relate to someone with a harmonizing color combination rather than a mess of clashing words and you are much more likely to get your point across to them. If you throw a bunch of text out that lacks any real focus on flow or emphasis on the key points, then you are likely to lose your audience’s focus and they will be unlikely to care about your piece. To be the most effective in affecting our audience, we should try to revise with simplicity in mind. Maybe we should consider more seriously what each piece we’re adding to our writing has to do with what we are trying to say. The more we focus on “is this necessary” rather than “I like this”, the more proficient we may become in achieving our goals of writing for the public.
You say, “I believe Park would agree to many levels that simplicity is best” and “Overall, applying these methods mentioned to our own purposes of writing for the public – I would say that, when revising and thinking about your audience, it is key to discuss the importance of ‘more is less.'” I agree with you on this, and I believe that Park would as well. White space is important in any document as well as maintaining a clear and effective summary of the information, and Park shows this in the refined version of the museum document. However, when does simplicity become a negative aspect in a document? How do we find that line between too much clutter and not enough information/graphics/coloring?
I like your point here: “Maybe we should consider more seriously what each piece we’re adding to our writing has to do with what we are trying to say. The more we focus on ‘is this necessary’ rather than ‘I like this’, the more proficient we may become in achieving our goals of writing for the public,” but how do we define what is necessary? How do we know if we have too little? I think that we are still missing a big part of the process of writing for the public. It is easy to create a document and refine and eliminate parts, such as the dinosaur graphic in Park’s example, but how do we determine if we are missing something crucial? What if that something is what is going to change our audiences’ minds completely? What is the process here? I would be curious to hear your thoughts on these questions.