Document design: Complex evolution: Interview with Karen Schriver, document design researcher and consultant

Karen A. Schriver is the author of dynamics in document design: creating texts for readers, an extensive, multidimensional portrait of what readers need from documents and of ways to integrate word and image in order to better meet those needs. She is the former codirector of the graduate program in technical communication and document design at Carnegie Mellon University (Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania). She has been a visiting professor at the University of Utrecht in the Netherlands and at the University of Washington in Seattle. A popular speaker, she has presented her ideas in Japan, the United Kingdom, Canada, and across the United States. Winner of five awards for her research, she now heads her own company, KSA Document Design & Research. She helps organizations improve the quality of their paper and electronic communications through strategies based on research and best practices. She is now working on a book about the nature of expertise in information design. When she is not writing, working with clients, or running to catch a plane, she spends time playing with her two crazy dogs: Cody (a Bearded Collie) and Tika (a little Muttley). She can be contacted via e-mail at: [email protected]