BUS 305Week 7

Agenda

• Producing business communications• Written, online & email• Best practices for making messages look

professional and polished

Form compared to substance

• Which is more important?• Why do both matter?• Can form impact substance? Why? How?

Production

• Communications must be ‘produced’ so they can be read easily and understood

Enhancing visual appeal

• Critical to getting messages across• Human beings are highly visual• Visual choices are part of the communication and

can influence the reader; What does this mean?

HATS

• Headings• Art• Typography• Spacing

HATS: Headings

• Must use these effectively!• They are a call to attention and action• Many people scan/skim messages making headings

critical to comprehension and action• What happens when you are given a message with

no headings and just paragraphs of text?

Types of headings

• Topical: Customer Service• Statement: Customer Service and its Role in

Revenue• Question: What role does customer service play

in revenue?

Adequacy and Hierarchy

• Two important concepts related to headings• Adequacy: Are there enough headings to see the

general idea/contents of the communication without reading it?

• Hierarchy: Is the structure of the document/message clear based upon the hierarchical order of headings (general to specific) indicated by size, indentation, and font (important in long documents!)

HATS: Art

• Use of visuals to convey information• Graphs, charts, pictures, clipart• So easy in a world where images are just a Google

search away!• Can be as simple as a row of information in columns

HATS: Typography

• Do you know a serif font from a san serif?• Which is better?

Alignment

• Left, center or right• Justified (hard to read but gives a document a

polished feel); Useful with narrow columns• Everything should be lined up whatever you choose

HATS: Spacing

• Spacing between paragraphs and headings helps the reader scan and comprehend

• Appropriate white space is important!

Activity

• Fix the hideous memo on the course website• Use HATS and make it readable to earn 3 extra

credit points! This is huge…can help if you are missing an assignment or think your analytical report won’t be so good…