Improving the presentation of printed text for tertiary level distance education: Literature review and survey

This paper furnishes recommendations for improving the presentation of distance education study guides. Two approaches were used to distil these recommendations. First, a review of the literature was undertaken. Then, the opinions of thirty‐five practitioners with first‐hand experience of printed study guide production for distance education were surveyed. The questionnaire (which was constructed on the basis of the literature findings) covered many aspects of textual design and layout including general, as well as macro and micro textual issues. Both sources generally agreed that simplicity, consistency, adequate use of white space, utilisation of a hierarchical heading structure, and use of access devices are essential for optimal textual design. But the applicability of a universal layout style, methods of separating paragraphs, whether to use section numbering, replacing textual cues with icons, the readability of fully justified text, and techniques for differentiating levels of headings were more contentious issues.