RE: Visuals in work instructions: how many is too much?

["Combs, Richard" <richard -dot- combs -at- Polycom -dot- com>]

Stephanie Bryant wrote: 
 
> Today, I encountered a fun problem on my computer involving 
> user interfaces. Every time I launched a particular program, 
> it displayed the window and the menu bar, but no buttons or 
> other UI elements. And yet, if I clicked randomly on the 
> toolbar, things happened. The non-displaying buttons were 
> *active* but did not show up. <snip>
> 
> If there had been a set of screen shots showing me what the 
> screens looked like, I would at least have known what I 
> should be looking at, and what areas of the screen would "do 
> stuff." I would have known which area to click to accept the 
> license agreement that I couldn't read.
> 
> Moral of the story: Use as many graphics as you need to to 
> give the user a complete picture of the task. One per step in 
> a task isn't too many, if the layout supports it. Be generous 
> and articulate with your graphics, be they screen shots, 
> diagrams, flowcharts, or photographs.

Umm, yeah -- if the goal of your manual is to enable your readers to use
the product _in an absurdly defective state_. And to encourage them to
accept a license agreement they can't read.

Or, instead of showing your readers a bunch of pictures so they can
"live with" a completely broken UI, you could put in something like
this: "Note: If you don't see the ABC and DEF buttons, there is a
problem with your XYZ file. To display the window correctly, ..." --
thus making a few words worth many pictures. 

Just an idea. 

Richard


------
Richard G. Combs
Senior Technical Writer
Polycom, Inc.
richardDOTcombs AT polycomDOTcom
303-223-5111
------
rgcombs AT gmailDOTcom
303-777-0436
------




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