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Subject:RE: Images in help systems From:jgarison -at- ide -dot- com To:"TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com> Date:Tue, 18 Sep 2001 10:57:27 -0400
IMHO, pictures in Help can definitely help.
I tend to shy away from full-blown screen shots, rather, I focus on portions
of a screen where specific actions are required. Also, I tend to show
screens with data filled in (realistically) so that users get a sense of
what it can be used for.
We do all online documentation, and I am beleaguered with calls for printed
documents so that people can read about the system without having to be tied
to the system. Since pictures can help, I am certainly not opposed to having
them in - especially since the "printed" documents we provide are
essentially PDF versions of HTML pages.
There are often times that, while reading Help, I wish I had a picture of
the "thing" being discussed. Even if we do provide Help with the
application, the hyperlinked nature of that Help means that it's very easy
to be reading about one (possibly related) topic while still looking at a
different screen. Also, in some applications, you may not be able to display
some screens until rather lengthy actions have been completed. It's nice to
sometimes see what will happen without having to go through lots of work to
get there.
There are often good reasons for putting pictures in Help - but only if they
help.
My 2¢,
John
-----Original Message-----
From: Darren Barefoot [mailto:Darren -dot- Barefoot -at- capeclear -dot- com]
Sent: Tuesday, September 18, 2001 4:40 AM
To: TECHWR-L
Subject: Images in help systems
Hi,
An issue has recently arisen that I've been wondering about and would like
to solicit the group's opinion. As I understand it, the rule of thumb when
authoring help systems is that the average help system should contain less
images than its corresponding printed (or printable) manual. I suspect this
rule exists because:
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