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UQ Innovation Expo 2003 ITEE Innovation Expo 2002 ITEE Innovation Expo 2001 ITEE Public Web ITEE School Alumni| UQ Innovation Expo 2003 » Mid-Year Student Projects » Timothy Briers |
Document Analysis for Effective Visual Communication
Student: Timothy Briers
Supervisor: Richard Cocks
Category: Engineering Thesis Project - Software
Students completing their Fourth Year Thesis in the ITEE Department are required to produce a poster for Innovation Expo, but are given little advice on this element of their thesis assessment. Consequently there is no certainty on the question of what a poster should contain or how it should look. In particular, students are poorly equipped to produce a poster that is effective visually, as graphic design standards are usually outside students’ field of study.
This project involves the development of software that scans posters for compliance with a set of design standards, derived from research into basic typographical principles. Among the design elements assessed are font, type size, colour, capital letters and justification of text. Assessment of these elements is made with a view to ensuring posters effectively communicate the student’s message to his or her audience.
The software is divided into two components. Firstly, a design tutorial teaches users the basic principles of effective design. Secondly, a document analysis program scans the poster for negative design elements and offers feedback to the user. On completion of the web-based tutorial, users upload their PowerPoint poster to the web server, which initiates the document analysis program. When a design error is identified the interface displays a brief message to the user describing the problem and suggesting a solution.