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My client makes a similar product, Joyce (not a competitor, though) with a
similar audience.
We're currently doing online help only, because we don't find the
workstations are conducive to keeping a hard copy manual nearby. There's a
PDF of the help that users may print out and use if needed.
After speaking with our audience, I decided to include screen shots, but
make them optional. In other words, they can click to drop-down the picture,
or leave the instructions as text-based. The doctors and nurses did NOT want
to have the images completely gone, but they DID want them to be hidden
until called-upon.
I recommend you ask your audience. You and the other tech writer should
write up two prototypes and do a short document test with a nurse, a
pharmacist, and a pharmacy tech and find out. When I did my audience test,
the prototype had very few screen shots, and the users did not miss them
much-- they only missed them in the places where the UI is directly
described. However, when I asked, they said they would not want the help to
be completely image-free.
On 7/17/07, Johnson, Joyce <JJohnson -at- abc-sg -dot- com> wrote:
>
> The application is used with automated pharmacy dispensing hardware.
> Typical users are nurses, pharmacists, and pharmacy technicians.
--
Stephanie Bryant
Author, Videoblogging for Dummies
mortaine -at- gmail -dot- com http://www.mortaine.com/
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