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Re: Press this, or just Press

Subject: Re: Press this, or just Press
From: "Kathleen MacDowell" <kathleen -at- writefortheuser -dot- com>
To: "Janice Gelb" <janice -dot- gelb -at- sun -dot- com>
Date: Sat, 3 Mar 2007 18:04:13 -0600

I didn't send out the original question, I just sent a comment.

Right now I'm writing a user's guide for a universal remote with a touch
screen and hard buttons. The remote controls up to 10 devices. So it does
have a GUI, but lots of different screens. Often, both the buttons and
touch-screen keys are used to accomplish a task. It can be complex.

We don't know that the materials we're producing will be translated, but
the decision was made to set them up as if they would be. I didn't make the
decision and generally prefer to have the information in the figure. But
there are trade-offs, such as having an overly busy figure/multiple
figures. There are alternative approaches that would make layout easier,
such as inline figures, but the company templates don't allow for that.
Finally, most of the products in the line I'm working on are fairly small (3
x 5 in.), and the installation materials are in an A5 layout, so the figures
can't have too much content.

On 3/3/07, Janice Gelb <janice -dot- gelb -at- sun -dot- com> wrote:


Kathleen MacDowell wrote:
> Perhaps I was unclear (or perhaps I don't understand you)--the text
content
> does provide instructions. The figures are to show specific areas,
buttons,
> etc. It's redundant of course, but often, if people are familiar with
the
> actual type of product being used, the figures are an alternate set of
> instructions.
>

The reason I assumed you didn't have text
content providing instructions was your
question about using verbs in callouts. If
you are already providing text instructions,
then I would have thought that the only text
you would need in the callouts would be the
names of things. Unless the GUI is particularly
confusing, I wouldn't even think you'd need
that type of callout, frankly, especially
given the difficulties with translating them.

-- Janice



--
Kathleen MacDowell
www.writefortheuser.com
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References:
Press this, or just Press: From: Milan Davidovic
Re: Press this, or just Press: From: Janice Gelb
Re: Press this, or just Press: From: Kathleen MacDowell
Re: Press this, or just Press: From: Janice Gelb
Re: Press this, or just Press: From: Kathleen MacDowell
Re: Press this, or just Press: From: Janice Gelb

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