Re: Translation of on-screen menus
I'm writing a user manual for a patient monitor with a sorta kinda
Windows-like GUI. That is, there is a menu bar with drop-down menus.
Some of the menu selections open dialogs. In other words, the visual
metaphors are friendly and familiar, even if there aren't actual windows
you can close.
In the initial draft I included screen shots of the menus and dialogs in
the course of writing task-based procedures.
The client, in reviewing the draft, is concerned that the cost of
translation into something like ten target languages will be greatly
increased because of the need to generate substitute screen shots and
has suggested, as an alternative, that we mock up the menus and dialogs using text tables (the deliverable is in Word). The result would be logically equivalent to screen shots of the actual menus, but it would not be graphically identical.
Just as a data point, we've moved away almost
completely from doing screenshots of menus
and dialog boxes, or even overviews of the GUI
as a GUI. Instead, we recommend to writers that
they introduce menus and dialog boxes at the point
in procedures where the menu option or dialog box
is relevant. Unless a GUI or dialog box is very
complex and requires orientation or callouts, our
position is that the only time the reader really
cares about menu options or dialog boxes is when they
have to use them to do something. In that context, a
text description of the option name or the dialog
box field is usually sufficient.
The only time we include screenshots is as a
confirmation of the state of a complex dialog
box once some steps in a procedure have already
been accomplished so readers can confirm that
they have been doing the procedure correctly
so far.
-- Janice
***********************************************************
Janice Gelb | The only connection Sun has with
janice -dot- gelb -at- sun -dot- com | this message is the return address.
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References:
Friday Humaor - AND It's On Topic!: From: Rob Domaschuk
Translation of on-screen menus: From: Dick Margulis
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