Re: screenshots - to crop or resize, that is the question

[CHRISTINE ANAMEIER <CANAMEIE -at- email -dot- usps -dot- gov>]

> A long time ago I took a Visual Literacy course from William
> Horton. As I recall (I don't have the information handy), one
> of the info tidbits was that screen shots in a manual serve only
> to orient the user, to reassure them that they are in the
> right spot in the procedure. They are *not* there to show actual
> detail of what should be on the screen.
> He referenced research that differentiated between screen shot
> sizing, between 100%, 75%, 50%, and 25%. . . .

I'd be interested in knowing more about the testing. If they showed users a full
screen capture sized at 100%, 75%, 50%, and 25%, it's not surprising that they
used it mostly for orientation. There's not much else you can do with a full
screen capture unless you take the time to figure out which details are
important and which aren't. If you're a novice user, that won't necessarily be
easy. So you glance at it and think "Okay, that looks more or less like the
screen I'm on."

I suspect the results would be different if they compared a full screen capture
at those sizes with a cropped capture at 100%, one that showed only the relevant
part of the screen being discussed at the time. There you CAN look at the
details without much effort.

Let's say the user is working with a large window that has a bunch of fields and
widgets, and there are six distinct areas on the screen that you deal with
separately in the documentation. Which would they be more likely to find useful:
a full screen capture of the window sized down to 25 or 50%, followed by six
chunks of text? Or a cropped capture of section 1 at a crisp 100% accompanied by
the section 1 text, then a cropped capture of section 2 and the corresponding
text, and so on? Cropping one big screen capture into six smaller ones allows
you to integrate the images with the corresponding text.

Apologies to those who've read my several other polemics on the subject; I was
trying to stay out of this thread to avoid repeating myself, but I couldn't stop
myself from responding to this <g>. In most cases, I dislike full screen
captures, and I loathe blurry, reduced-size full screen captures, and don't even
get me started on full screen captures where you have flip back a page or two to
refer to figure X-1. In my last contract, I did a 200-page training guide (which
also served as a manual; not optimal but that's how it went) that was heavily
peppered with cropped screen captures of various sizes. These images were
intended to show details, but I'm told that the users found them helpful for
orientation as well.

Crop it, don't resize it: that's my advice when it comes to screen captures. I
have no real research to back it up, apart from anecdotes, so YMMV.

Christine
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Free copy of ARTS PDF Tools when you register for the PDF
Conference by May 15. Leading-Edge Practices for Enterprise
& Government, June 3-5, Bethesda,MD. www.PDFConference.com

Check out RoboDemo for tutorials! It makes creating full-motion software
demonstrations and other onscreen support materials easy and intuitive.
Need RoboHelp? Save $100 on RoboHelp Office in May with our mail-in rebate.
Go to http://www.ehelp.com/techwr-l
---
You are currently subscribed to techwr-l as: archive -at- raycomm -dot- com
To unsubscribe send a blank email to leave-techwr-l-obscured -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com
Send administrative questions to ejray -at- raycomm -dot- com -dot-  Visit
http://www.raycomm.com/techwhirl/ for more resources and info.