Re: Screen captures (was RE: TECHWR-L Digest, Vol 35, Issue 14)

Subject: Re: Screen captures (was RE: TECHWR-L Digest, Vol 35, Issue 14)
From: "Janet Swisher" <jmswisher -at- gmail -dot- com>
To: "Hemstreet, Deborah" <DHemstreet -at- kaydon -dot- com>
Date: Tue, 16 Sep 2008 14:50:49 -0500

On Tue, Sep 16, 2008 at 1:38 PM, Hemstreet, Deborah
<DHemstreet -at- kaydon -dot- com> wrote:

>
> I think the issue is, though, that the partial screen captures are TOO
> partial.
>
> If I have the tooltip and part of the toolbar, with the top part of the
> window, I am more likely to locate the command, than just seeing the
> tooltip floating in space.
>
> Partials can work - it just depends on how wisely they are cut...

Along those lines, this paper describes a technique the authors call
"graphstracts", in which only snippets are shown, but they maintain
their spacial relationship to one another:
http://portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1294211.1294248&coll=Portal&dl=ACM&CFID=3009121&CFTOKEN=85074890

Unfortunately, you need an ACM subscription to view the full article.

The authors compared various versions of this technique to the
plain-text versions for the same procedure. Users were able to
complete tasks more quickly using "graphstracts". The technique "was
especially strong in tasks where the user
had to navigate dialog boxes and interact with certain controls"
However, users commented that having at least some text in addition
would be helpful.


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RE: Screen captures (was RE: TECHWR-L Digest, Vol 35, Issue 14): From: Hemstreet, Deborah

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