RE: Display installer panels in doc?

["Catherine Buck" <cbuck -at- xillix -dot- com>]

If it's a good bet that the user is reading the install guide while looking
at the screen (not offline), the screen shots are redundant and take up way
too much room. Users don't want to read the doc, so they are not going to be
encouraged to do so if they get the impression that the install guide is
just a dump of panels.

The installer should try to be self-documenting (duh). This may not happen
if the installer is badly designed or if there are some aspects to
installation that are too complicated to pack into one panel. In either
case, I still try to avoid screen shots in the main thread of the install
guide (in a hope of getting this thread onto one or two pages) and instead
include x-refs to later subsections in the install guide, maybe with a
screen shot, to act as a visual cue. If the reason for the x-ref is a badly
designed wizard, the long explanation can become a base for redesigning the
wizard in a later revision - ie, the logic that's had to go into the install
guide can be integrated into the wizard.

Do you market or develop - if you develop, why not ask the software
developers who created the product if they want screens? Ten-to-one they
don't.


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