A Visual Guide to Document Design and Layout  

Technical publications departments in their infancy seem to have great difficulty producing documentation that is well designed and consistent in appearance throughout all documents. As the department matures, it attempts to "consistify" the appearance of the documentation, but, unless there is an experienced template designer on board, this is often a drawn-out process involving focus groups and much squabbling. Once the design is complete, however, it tends to be nearly identical to the templates designed by every other technical publications department in the world. Aside from a handful of design features that distinguish the look and feel of one company's documentation from that of its competitors, everything else is pretty much the same. Whether the focus group spends six months or two years designing templates, they all discover that a well-designed user guide contains some specific and standard design elements.

Amott, Lyndsey. Docsymmetry (2003). Resources>Style Guides>Design>Documentation