Document Design and Emergency Management Plans

Document design is a hybrid field of study that emerged &om both graphic design and professional writing. Emergency management planning occurs at all levels of government and documents processes, procedures and responsibilities of responding agencies to a disaster situation. An examination of the rhetorical elements of audience, context and purpose enables application of appropriate document design in any type of document, including emergency management plans, because the rhetorical situation of a document helps to determine appropriate design cues appropriate for the specific audience, context or purpose of that specific document. Through relevant research into document design theory and practice, currently available guidance for emergency management planning, and a survey of emergency management current practices, this study shows that the application of appropriate document design has not yet occurred in emergency management plans. Available guidance offers vague design concepts, but fails to address the rhetorical situation of the documents or how to implement appropriate design. State planners indicate understanding regarding the important relationship between design and planning but have not implemented design principles based on the rhetorical situations. One feasible solution to this interdisciplinary issue is to incorporate professional writers into the current structure of emergency management planning groups. Other recommendations based on this research include examining the feasibility of alternate delivery systems for the content of the emergency management plans, sharing the results of this research with the survey participants, creating a dialogue, potentially through conferences or publications, where emergency management planners and professional writers have the opportunity to collaborate on the application of document design in emergency management planning, and actual study and observation of the use of both traditional emergency management plans and alternate delivery systems during actual or exercised disaster situations.