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- No screen shots inserted into a line of text; it messes up the linespacing. Put screen shots on the line immediately following the relevant text, centered. When authoring in Framemaker, I've hung pix of buttons in the white space in the right margin, which worked well in terms of sneaking in a shot while saving vertical space.
- Only add screen shots that are necessary for clarity. For example, if I'm telling someone to click a button, and that button doesn't have a text label and/or is lost in a sea of other UI elements, then I add a shot. If the button is clearly labelled in the UI, they will find it... I don't need to show it.
- In procedures, avoid using shots of entire screens or dialogs... they take up too much space on the page (meaning that in pdfs, you'll have problems with bad page breaks; and you'll be forcing the user to do a lot of scrolling to get past the shots, in both pdfs and html output), and the reader is probably already looking at the whole thing on their screen anyway. Instead, just show what's relevant; i.e. the part of the UI where the action is performed; and only when it would be difficult to figure out how/where to do the action without a picture to orient the user.
- Consistency in the size/shape of screen shots isn't important; what IS important is making sure that the resolution is crisp and consistent, and the size of the text in the shot and callouts doesn't go below a minimal, readable point size (8 pt is about as small as I'm willing to go, and even that's pushing it a little)
- Clickable thumbnails are useful in situations where you want to include a big graphic as an optional, kind of bonus reference for less-experienced users; but I wouldn't necessarily use them for ALL shots -- if the user has to keeping expanding and collapsing graphics to figure out what's going on, that would be annoying.
- Using a two-column format, with all shots on the right, might be fine if you only ever have to include small graphics. Otherwise, you're going to run into situations where, because of the limitations of a narrow column width, you'll end up with shots that are effectively useless because they are so small. Its also going to lead to situations where you've got a long, narrow column of text with a lot of awkward line breaks; with a lot of empty, wasted white space in the right column.
Ultimately, the rule is: Use illustrations when necessary, in whatever way maximizes comprehension and usability.
-----Original Message-----
From: techwr-l-bounces+lynne -dot- wright=kronos -dot- com -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com <techwr-l-bounces+lynne -dot- wright=kronos -dot- com -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com> On Behalf Of Paul Hanson
Sent: Thursday, June 14, 2018 7:26 AM
To: techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
Subject: RE: Consistency with screenshots
Related to the size of screenshots, does anyone have any references that helped you decide where the screenshots should be placed? I've seen Word documents in a two column format: the left column is the text and the right column is the screenshot. I've also seen screenshots in a drop-down with the text "Click here to view a screenshot..." to layer the information on the page.
Any thoughts or references regarding these strategies?
-----Original Message-----
From: techwr-l-bounces+twer_lists_all=hotmail -dot- com -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com [mailto:techwr-l-bounces+twer_lists_all=hotmail -dot- com -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com] On Behalf Of Chris Morton
Sent: Thursday, June 14, 2018 5:42 AM
To: techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
Subject: Re: Consistency with screenshots
It varies. But the key is make all screenshots have the same size relative to one another. <snip> ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
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