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Subject:Gathering feedback on the image annotation tool? From:Geoff Hart <ghart -at- videotron -dot- ca> To:TECHWR-L <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com>, Alex Masycheff <alexm -at- fototagger -dot- com> Date:Mon, 09 Oct 2006 15:43:02 -0400
Alex Masycheff wonders: <<I would like to ask your help. Our company
has developed a product, called FotoTagger that enables users to
annotate digital images, including photos, screenshots, or drawings.
I would like to gather feedback from technical writers, like you, in
order to understand whether this product could satisfy the needs of
specialists involved in developing technical documentation and/or
identify additional features that might be useful.>>
Sounds like a great product in principle--you're not really doing
anything that couldn't be done in Photoshop with a bit more work, but
there's always room for special utilities that do the job more
elegantly. I'd be happy to provide feedback except for one teeny,
tiny problem: your product appears to run only on PCs. That's a
shame, as your description makes it sound like exactly the kind of
product I could really use right about now for a book I'm working on.
<rant> It's not rocket science to develop products that will run on
both Macs and PCs. Really. Write it in Java if you have to.</rant>
That being said, a few thoughts without being able to actually use
the product: <<- Placing textual comments (annotations) that relate
to specific objects directly on an image.>>
For things like text, I have a strong recommendation: allow authors
to create the text in an external file (ideally XML) and use pointers
of some sort to refer to the text in that file. Why? Because
translators and localizers around the world will bless you and your
children and your children's children. <g> Keeping the text in a
standard, easily word processor-compatible file makes translation
enormously easier (i.e., translators can use translation memories and
machine translation on the files) than if the text is embedded in
some kind of proprietary file format.
Talk to some localization companies to find out about the tools they
use and how your product could integrate with those tools. Then you
can go to the tool vendors and offer them a sweet deal if they bundle
your product with theirs.
<<- Exporting annotations to an XML file and importing them back onto
the image.>>
Given that you're already thinking of adding XML export, it shouldn't
be too hard to adopt my previous suggestion.
<<FotoTagger works with JPEG files and stores annotations along with
positioning information in the metadata section of the JPEG file.>>
That's a cool thought, but if you want to dramatically increase your
market size, add other formats too. Graphics folk live in Photoshop,
so adding direct import of .psd files gives you something they can
adopt immediately. Make it a plug-in and that's even better. For
people who do serious print publishing, it would be helpful to
annotate TIFF files in this manner; for people who do screenshots,
PNG or GIF support would be nice.
The trick is to abstract the graphical content in such a way that you
can separate it from the original file format and from the text: you
should be able to import any graphics format, convert that into a
bitmap or other raster format that allows you to define (x,y)
coordinates, and attach the text to a series of coordinates defined
using your software. That's not programming rocket science either.
<<1. Can you use it for recording notes (e.g. on a product photo or
drawing) while interviewing programmers/engineers? 2. Can programmers/
engineers in your organization use it for recording important
information (e.g. explaining GUI) that should be delivered to
technical writers?>>
Make this run in real-time over the Web (hint: see my suggestion
above about programming in Java), and you can allow people to
collaborate remotely. For example, programmers in India could work
(by conversing in a separate chat or instant messaging window) with
technical writers in North America and update an annotated graphic in
real-time. Macintosh-based graphic designers at advertising agencies
on the west coast could collaborate with PC-based clients on the east
coast to modify graphic layouts in real time.
Now _that's_ a killer app!
Oh... one last thing. Sell it for closer to US$25-50 than $250-$500.
If you're first into the market, you don't want to give your
competitors room to undercut you on price. Sell if for $500 and you
can bet all the shareware authors in the world will be drooling, that
Corel will have a competing product for $100 in about 1 month, and
that most of the people who could benefit from your product will
stick with Photoshop, Corel, and PaintShop Pro. Make it an impulse
buy, not something that has to be budgeted for a year in advance.
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